


The Wise and the Lovely

by Shona



Category: Crossing Lines
Genre: BDSM, Case Fic, Daddy Kink, Dubious Consent, F/M, Kink Negotiation, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Praise Kink, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Slow Burn, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-05-27 21:09:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6300511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shona/pseuds/Shona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ellie accidentally tips her hand too far, she attracts Marco's interest beyond his usual acerbity and disregard.  In the midst of a case that ties sexual politics to narcotics trafficking, Ellie and Marco dance around the idea of maybe they got it wrong the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1.

 _Miss Schadenfreude_ , he labels her with an audible sneer each time that highlights the jump in his throat every time. He is all dark scowls and muscled stoicness, a monument to anger deep like Baikal. He maybe comes to care for her, to think that she could do her job, but never with that ease of _good job, Ellie_ or _nice work_ that comes from Carine with the perpetually weary smile of law enforcement.

(His thumbs up always seem more sarcastic than genuine, flashed over his shoulder on the way out of the door.)

It's possible that it takes more than eight months to get a team moving akin to seamless parts of a machine (and every time Seeger and Wilkinson start that steady friction again, everything gets set back at least a month). But between the two of them, the contempt is still there, recriminatory and patronizing. An ancient understanding of youth and her fresh-faced, sunny disposition, her fair skin and blonde hair, does her no favors here.

(Sometimes, he maybe stares a little too long at her bare feet and black-painted toenails that have begun to chip. It's unhygienic, but no one ever says a word. Certainly not him.)

2.

 _Inspector Constante_ , she calls him without fail. Never _Marco_ , not unless it would be strange not to. She knows how to hide, how to conceal the strange conflict of emotions with that veneer of professionalism that she learned at her father's knee. She affords him her endless politeness, thin-lipped and aristocratic, even in the face of a gun.

( _Your passion is what will make you a great detective_ , he tells her one night, almost as if he truly believes it. It feels like an apology, but he never does anything more beyond that, so when it's been a few weeks and she's had time with the words that she's kept close to her heart, they curdle after a lack of tending. No water.)

She is a crusader, just like the rest of them. The things she sees with those wide blue eyes are the gaps between breaths that no one else believes are there: the necessities of a teenage girl at boarding school, the shared spaces between sisters, the cold memory of a dead brother and the incisive dedication to _duty_. Duty, she understands. Whether she has shown him this to everyone's satisfaction is another matter.

(Her smiles are always a little frigid, like winter sunshine, but her hands are gentle and if she spends a little too long lingering on his jawline, neither of them ever mentions it. Certainly not her.) 

3.

They prefer to avoid referring to each other directly at all, if possible. They try to never be left alone with one another. There was too much blood spilt within the first few weeks and when the pale armistice was called, something had been irreparably damaged. They linger on opposite ends of the ICC now, circling each other, waiting for the attack that never comes.

 

DAY THREE

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

4.

"It's called _kuća čuda_. House of Miracles. It's an elite and private organization dedicated to the catering of - _particular_ desires." Ellie's face doesn't move an inch, every breath that of a princess keeping herself firmly in check. "They specialize in providing BDSM oriented activities to members of certain social circles to whom it would be dangerous to otherwise engage in them outside of a controlled setting."

Cambridge had been good for something. With every word, Constante's left eyebrow goes up and up until he can no longer prevent shock from lifting his right.

"How did you _get_ this?" Sebastian asks, blinking at her.

Language of the rarefied indeed. Ellie doesn't shrug, even though she wants to. That's the first indication that she would be lying, and the team's focus on her is unnerving, to say the least. At least Michel isn't here; talking about this with him would feel uncomfortably similar to watching sex scenes on TV with her grandfather.

At least she has an answer other than _unnamed sources_.

"The audio you've been trying to translate," and she brings up the file. "It's Serbian. They mention a _miracle house_. There's not much else but it was enough, considering Minister Ilić's history of sexual scandal."

None of them need a refresher of his 80's stint for sexual assault during  _wildly_ kinky and unsafe sex.

"This is brilliant, Ellie," Carine cuts of anyone's further commentary. Luke's grin has gone crooked in that particularly slick way that speaks of sex. Seeger's eyes glint with interest. "What else do you have?"

Ellie sighs. "This is about it. They're potentially Serbian based, but where is another matter entirely." Ellie leans back in her chair and tucks her bare feet up under her thighs. "Sebastian would need to clean the audio more for me to try anything else."

"I didn't realize you speak Serbian," Constante drawls, low and steady from his corner. Ellie's eyes flicker to him and she lifts one corner of her lips up, because it's _not a question, Ellie, you don't have to answer it_.

Carine, as ever, is her life saver.

"Let's see what we can do with this. Ellie, keep working on the audio with Sebastian and working whatever angles you have with the Miracle House. Websites, other audio, local reports," and she waves her hand. "Luke, Arabela, get down to Porter's house and see if you can rattle him with the mention of the club. Marco, you're with me. We're going to Belgrade."

When Marco leaves, he brushes past Ellie's shoulder and leans into her space, his breath cascading hot and threatening across the swannish length of her neck. "What kind of angles are you _working_ , I wonder?"

Ellie's eyes fix upon the expanse of his back as he goes, the upturned collar of his wool coat, and she presses her lips together until they go white.

This was a mistake. But lives are at stake, and none of them are hers.

5.

(On the way to Belgrade, images of unmarked white flesh stretched out on warm red cotton attack Marco behind his sunglasses, burning into his retinas.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in this fandom under protest. What the hell am I doing, _no one knows_. Expect prose masquering as poetry brinking on purple prose.
> 
> Title taken from Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, _Dirge Without Music_.


	2. Chapter 2

DAY ONE

VLORË, ALBANIA

1.

He's sweating.  Even through the air conditioning in the sleek black car, he is sweating until the circles under his arms are visible and his jacket is a lost cause.  He looks in the rearview mirror again for the fourth time in ten minutes and runs his hands over the steering wheel, leaving behind giant, slippery stains on the black leather.  It's thirty-five degrees and on the radio, the anchor says in static-broken Albanian that _the heat wave is climbing and with it, our tempers_.

It's another minute before he sees in the rearview the flash of a figure wearing a red jacket. It pops in and out of view from behind a pillar and he's out of the car like a flash, his eyes seeking the column.  People stream past him, but he has only eyes for the fringe of bright red.

Something's wrong.

There's a _pop_ , a tire exploding in the heat and pain exploding from his chest to his stomach and his head, pain like lightning and fire that strikes so fast, he gasps for air.  It's only seconds before he realizes what's happened and his body hits the streets.

While the blood pours in the grooves of the cobblestones, it takes the scant crowds of this little road another minute to realize what's happened.

And then the screaming begins.

 

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS  


2.

"Agim Baris.  Attaché to the Albanian consulate in Belgrade, Serbia and direct subordinate of Ambassador Aleksander Kastrati."  Dorn clicks through the photographs on the projector with a grim set to his eyes, his entire wardrobe a little more frazzled than normal (his tie is half a centimeter askew from the usual, his jacket is unbuttoned while standing, and he seems two coffee cups short of a functioning mind).  "Found shot in the chest and double-tapped by his car in a back alley in Vlorë."

"Professional hit," Luke observes, his elbows bracing against the table. "That's a sniper shot.  Someone got close enough to tap him in the head?"

"Two guns," Carine confirms.  "Chest shot from a sniper rifle, headshot from a pistol."  She drags her fingers through her hair.

"Baris was about to betray his superiors," Dorn informs them.  "He was collecting evidence in the case against Minister Dominic Ilić."

"Balkan drug trade," Marco throws a pen up into the air.

"Sex scandals," Seeger says at the same time.

The two of them eyeball each other.  Ellie covers a half-smile with her hand and Dorn just shakes his head.

"Right on both counts.  The Minister is long suspected of running a drug road through the Balkans, of primarily heroin.  A vital source has been murdered and with it, our case."  Michel gnashes his teeth.  "There is evidence from the scene of the murderer coming from deeper in the Balkans, originating possibly from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Whatever evidence Agim was going to give us, is possibly long gone."  Dorn eyes the ICC team.  "This is our case.  We have permission to be on the ground.  Tread carefully.  Balkan diplomacy is notoriously temperamental."

"Powderkeg," Sebastian mutters under his breath.  Ellie frowns at the shape and shade of the Minister's face on the screen.

"Do we need to worry about world wars?" Luke asks brightly, and Dorn shoots him a dour look that has him clicking his teeth shut.  Arabela snickers.

  


VLORË, ALBANIA

3.

"Anything?" Ellie asks Sebastian, leaning over his shoulder to squint at the computer screen.  His lips quirk and he tugs her hair out of the way where it's tickling his collarbone and shoulder.

"Nothing yet.  There's no CCTV here and we still haven't be able to get all the private footage," as he points to the camera across the street.  "And the other two cameras are duds."

"Duds?" she parrots in confusion.

"Fake cameras made to look like ongoing security, but nothing in them.  Easy, cheap deterrents.  Useless," and the German tech rubs his fingers over the bridge of his nose.  Ellie looks up from the video scanning facial recognition when Marco strides through the door and doesn't quite remove his sunglasses; he slides them down his nose and peers at her over the tops of them with inscrutable dark eyes.

"Carine and I are following the lead to Bosnia," he tells them.  "Let us know if you find anything here."

"We will," Ellie says.  Her voice is firm, unwavering, and she swears that the inspector cracks a smile so fleeting it's gone before she can process.

"I know you will."

Sebastian gives the back of Ellie's head an amused look while the older man takes his leave to the chopper.  She doesn't notice.

  


4.

Ellie spends a little more time on her personal phone than she would have otherwise because she remembers… _something_ , but not quite anything.  It's a very annoying, faint bell of something she feels she should know.

Sebastian, to his credit, says nothing of her renewed fondness for looking things up on her phone instead of the work laptop.  There are just some things that should never been in the web history of the International Criminal Court.

  


SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

5.

"Are you _sure_?" Carine asks for the millionth time and the police officer behind the desk pinches his forehead in irritation.  Behind her, Marco coughs once, twice, and she deflates.  "Of course you are.  I apologize.  Is there any way we can get copies of your tapes?"

"I'll see what I can do," he says before he flees her presence.

"You're a menace," Marco says mildly, and Carine bares her teeth before leaning over the desk and watching the video again.

A red jacket.  Bright red.  The local Sarajevo football team.  Carefully avoiding cameras, but not _too_ careful.  A little too obvious, but not enough to be identified.  Sebastian would need to work his miracles.

"What do you think?"

"I think someone wants us to be here," Carine sighs, and braces her forehead on the palm of her hand.  "Can you contact Luke and Arabela and see if their canvas in Vlorë spat up anything else?"

"You don't want to go play ball with the Minister?" Marco asks, already halfway through texting them.

"No.  We have nothing yet."  She casts her gaze up to the ceiling. "Tell them to go talk to the Ambassador.  Let's pay our respects."

  


BELGRADE, SERBIA

6.

"Can I- can I help you?" the receptionist asks, restarting her question in English once she sweeps her gaze over Luke and Arabela.  Arabela pulls out her badge.

"Inspectors Seeger and Wilkinson from the ICC.  We're here to speak to Ambassador Kastrati," Seeger says, and Luke looks back over his shoulder at the increased security in the Albanian consulate.

"Inspector Strand called ahead," the receptionist confirms.  "Terrible business," and Luke raises his eyebrows at Arabela once her back is safely turned.  She leads them to the elevators; behind them, they're followed by a guard with a rifle.  "Don't mind the increased security.  It's been a terrible shock."  She swipes her ID.  "Ride it straight to the top."

"That's what she said," Luke exhales once she's out of earshot and Arabela scowls at him.  "Sorry, was that insensitive?"  She steps directly onto his toe while leaning over to the press the button.

The guard comes into the elevator with them and the back of Luke's neck itches.

They collect and lose a total of five people before they reach the top floor and the guard leads them to a set of double doors where, beyond them, is a large desk and open space and two people.  One, a woman in a dappled grey business suit and a PDA in her hand, standing just behind the man sitting at the desk.  Two, the man at the desk, older, dark, craggy, and with a far too easy smile.

"You're the inspectors from the Hague," he observes and he half-stands to shake their hands.  "Please, sit.  I cannot express how grateful we are to the ICC for their aid in this matter."

"What can you tell us about Mr. Baris?" Arabela asks, folding into a chair.  Luke's gaze drifts to the lady behind him; she hasn't moved a single millimeter since they entered, not even to look at them.

"Diligent, loyal, ethical," and Aleksander Kastrati's mouth twists into a moue of grief.  "I never had any complaints.  He rose through the ranks here at the consulate at a rather unlikely speed."  A faint hint of humor. "A brilliant young man.  What a _waste_ ," he finishes in a mutter.  "Lana will get you his personnel file," and he snaps his finger and Lana exits the room at an abrupt clip.

Luke's eyes stray downward to her shoes - dove gray peep-toe heels, just a shade too tall for a government building.

"Do we know why he was killed?"

Arabela and Luke share a look.  "There's the possibility that he stumbled onto information regarding the drug trade in the Balkans," Luke opts to say.  "We're investigating all possibilities.  Did he have any next of kin?"

Aleksander purses his lips.  "He had a girlfriend, I think.  He rather kept his private life… _private_.  A compartamentalized man."

"Wonderful," Luke grouses.

"Do you know of anyone who would have wanted to harm him?" Arabela asks.  Aleksander sighs, and shakes his head.

"He was well-liked.  Even Lana liked him and," here, his lips quirk in a secret smile, "Lana doesn't like anyone."

They exchange a few more standard questions but by the time the pair of them exit, Luke has already murmured _he's lying_ , before they even make it to the elevator.  Lana hails them with a quiet _inspectors_ that carries down the hall.  When Luke turns around, she extends a paper file towards him.  She catches his gaze, darts her eyes over his face (olive green, eyelashes made thick and black by mascara).

"Catch the person who did this," she says, before leaving.

"I hate politicians," Luke tells Arabela as they get into the car.  "And I think I hate their assistants even more."

"Thieves and liars," Arabela agrees heavily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely not making this up as I go along. No. Not at all. What exactly counts as "slow build" in fanfiction? I can never tell.


	3. Chapter 3

DAY ONE

VLORË, ALBANIA

 

1.

Sebastian presses his index fingers against his eyelids in an effort to relieve the headache building behind them; at his elbow, there's a little white jar of medication that appears to have not done its job.  In front of him, his laptop cycles through footage and tries to match faces and records, but it's a slow process.  Outside, Ellie stands in front of the office window (the tourism office that they've overtaken with flashing badges and permissions, right outside the bloodstains left behind by the unlucky Albanian) with her arms wrapped around her chest and thin sweat stains striped down her spine.  She's staring up at the stars, her phone clutched in her hand, and then she starts pacing again.

He's halfway through the next file of video footage and out of options when Ellie strides back inside with a deep frown between her blonde eyebrows directed at her phone.  Sebastian waits for her to speak, because that face won't hold a silence for long.

"I think I might have something," Ellie says without looking up.  "I'm going to need a warrant."  Her eyes drift up to his, to the curious tilt of his mouth.  "And we won't get anything until six in the morning.   You'd better get some sleep, at least."

"I don't -"

" _Sebastian_ ," Ellie interrupts, her head jerking up to meet his gaze head-on.  He waffles.  "I'm calling Mr. Dorn. You finish that video and go to sleep."  She props herself up on one of the tables and kicks her shoes off while phoning Dorn.  Sebastian smiles at her, and does as she says.

(The last someone didn't go to sleep with Ellie told them to, Ellie remotely shut down their laptop from Sebastian's lab and refused to open it again until they at least took a nap, the whole time backed by a warily smirking Michel Dorn.)

  
  


2.

Arabela leans up against the railing as she hangs up on her call with Lorraine, a bitter curl outlining her eyebrows in the dark.  It's been too long since Arabela's been in country for longer than a couple of days and it's starting to wear on the relationship just enough for her to decide to call every day.  When she glances down at the street below, she can see Ellie's resplendent blonde hair in the shadows of a lamppost, head ducked on the phone.  She's quiet, her dark blue shoes scuffing at the street.

"Yes, this is she," Arabela hears her say after a long silence of waiting on the phone.  On hold, maybe.  "Ugh.  Yes, I'll hold.   _Again_."  She presses her forehead against the lamppost to stare at the ground, her spine a straight line of tension.  Arabela lingers just a moment longer until she's passed on again.

It's such a strange conversation.

"I'm not in country," she says.  "It'll have to wait." Pause.  She swipes her hand across the back of her neck.  "Someday, I'll find something permanent.  Not today."

Arabela leaves her there, the guilt of invasion of privacy crawling across her skin.

  


DAY TWO

VLORË, ALBANIA

3.

"Sir, could you explain to my colleague what it is you do here?" Ellie asks, wearing that wide patient smile that just shows the tips of her white teeth.  Sebastian, behind her, tries to not look as confused as he feels.

They're in a technology store just down the road from Baris' crime scene, but the cameras they had threw up nothing but a Sarajevo red jacket that led to nowhere, so far.  But Ellie's gotten a warrant for something she's playing close to the chest and she seems smug.  Behind the counter, the wiry gentleman with glasses held together by tape and a prayer runs his eyes down Ellie's body again, and then to Sebastian.

"We run audio and visual surveillance in this neighborhood, for protection."  He wrings his hands together.  "It's all done with consent of the business," he waves one hand, "group.  Local businesses."

Sebastian frowns.

"Where do you have audio recording?" Ellie asks, so sweet, so easy.  "We aren't here to cause any trouble."

His long fingers tap out a nervous tattoo against the glass counter.

"Every other block for ten blocks in both directions and," but Sebastian stops him with a strangled noise.

"Do you have the recordings from yesterday? From in front of the tourism office?"

The man gives them a level look, glances at the paper Ellie sets onto the counter, and then nods.

"I can help you."

  


BELGRADE, SERBIA

 

4.

"Sebastian found something on the red jacket," Carine says, showing the phone screen to Marco.  His sunglasses slide down his nose until his eyebrow raises.  "It's not much, but."

"It's not a very popular team.  Or big," Marco admits.  "We can try."  His lips purse.  He hasn't shaved in a long time; the search for his sister continues in the background of his life, of his mind, always, and Carine can see it in his stubble.

"His name is Roberto Porter," Carine swipes through the file on her phone as Marco starts the car.  "His address is linked to your GPS."

 

UMKA, SERBIA

 

5.

"Mr. Porter?" Carine asks.  The gentleman who opens the door is a perfect match for the man in the file: middle-aged, fit, with a history of rough-housing in Sarajevo and Belgrade football clubs.  He lingers in the door of his home, watching them.  "My name is Inspector Strand, this is Inspector Constante.  We're with the ICC."

He wrinkles his nose.  "The what?"

"The International Criminal Court.  At the Hague." She flashes her badge.  "We have a couple of questions for you."  Carine smiles.  "May we come in?"

Porter glances at Marco, and back to Carine, before side-stepping to allow them inside.  The home is quiet, obviously containing only one man, and organized.  Everything in it - the furniture, the appliances, the wallpaper - is old, _vintage_ , and in varying states of disrepair.  Marco looks over a local map pinned to the wall; it's hand-drawn, faded at the edges, detailed.

"What's this about?" Porter leans on the counter in the kitchen where he's taken them.  Marco trails behind Carine.

"Yesterday, a young man belonging to the Albanian embassy in Serbia was killed.  We have sightings of what looks to be a Sarajevo football jacket in the area from when he was killed.  He was tracked via CCTV to Bosnia by local police enforcement."

"You're a member of the Sarajevo _lavova i križevi_ club, Mr. Porter?" Marco asks.  Porter's face takes on a bewildered expression.  "It's not a big club - neighborhood football, city games only.  You're a big fan, Mr. Porter."

"There's more than one man in that club," he says.  "I'm sorry to hear about the murder.  Death is a serious business."

Marco glances at Carine's profile.

"Could you tell us where you were yesterday, Mr. Porter?" Carine asks.

"In Sarajevo.  There was a game on."  He opens a bottle of beer against the edge of the counter, a simple twist of his arm with what looks like not a lot of force.  Marco snorts.  "Why?"

"You were in Sarajevo all day?" Carine presses a little more.  He nods. "What time was the game?"

"Kickoff at three-thirty." He takes a long swallow of beer.  "Stayed for the whole game, celebrated afterwards." Porter's face takes on a vague hint of amusement.  "Are you here to question me about my love of the sport?"

"Five hour drive.  Dedication, considering you don't even live in country,"  Marco notes.

"Three hour train ride.  And I love all Balkan countries."  Porter drinks again.  "The Balkans are my home.  We're all brothers here."  He grins a little wider.  "If there's nothing else, inspectors?"

Outside, Carine sighs.  "You know what I hate the most about this job?"  Marco hums.  " _Everyone is always lying._ "

 

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

  
6.

"Sebastian needs you in the lab," Ellie informs them as they step out of the elevator.  There's a barely restrained energy about her; she quivers in excitement all the way back to Sebastian's computers, her bare feet silent on the cold tile.  Marco shrugs when Luke makes a questioning face.

"So, we're all aware of the total loss that was video in the area," Sebastian doesn't bother with more of an opening.  "It turns out, this particular neighborhood does surveillance of the area as part of a business pact."  Sebastian glances at Ellie.  "Including audio."

Everyone's spines instantly straighten.  "What did you get?"

"They had an audio recorder set up next to a pillar across the street from the tourism office."  Sebastian presses play while Carine's lips spread into a shark smile, the tips of her canines promising justice.  Ellie doesn't remove her gaze from the team, her whole face a round beam of pride that she can't stamp down on.

They can hear the noise of the street, people talking, walking, the wind, someone saying _it's sweltering I'm going to melt_ in British English walking past, the sound of a car door opening, the rustle of someone's clothing very close to the microphone, and then the whistle of a sniper's shot.  A sharp exhalation of breath, but no words, and then someone walking away from the microphone.  Screaming, an outcry, _oh my god he's dead_ , and two gunshots ricocheting louder over everything else.

Chaos.

"And then a few minutes later, after the police are there…"

Chatter.  Police men.  Angry, frustrated Albanian.  It's all there is.  Until Sebastian removes a layer without commentary and they can hear the furious whispers of someone a few feet away from the microphone.

"I've isolated what sounds like someone talking on a cell phone.  They're there for a large chunk of the recording, watching, until about two-thirty, when they can no longer be heard. I assume they leave."  Sebastian taps a segment of the spectrograph.  "I've selected it because of the word _minister_ , but what language or whatever else they're saying will take a while to unravel and translate.  It's hard to isolate.  There's a lot of noise on top of it."

"This is excellent work, Sebastian," Marco says, with an approving nod.

"Oh, no.  This was all Ellie."  Immediately, Marco's curious eyes snap to Ellie, where she can't stop herself from biting on her lower lip to prevent the smile from escaping.  "Her observation, her warrant, her seizure. Brilliant."

Carine says _good work, Ellie_ and Marco is the last to leave the office, his features unshifting, and Ellie hovers at the table behind Sebastian while he continues working on the audio.

"Everything all right?" she asks him.

"Good job," and he throws up his left thumb as he exits.  Ellie's shoulders slump.  Sebastian leans over without taking his eyes off the computer screen and pats her hand.


	4. Chapter 4

DAY TWO

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

1.

"This audio is terrible," the technician tells Ellie with a skeptical expression.  "Is the best you can do?"

Ellie shrugs.  "It's what our IT has been able to come up with. He's a one-man army, but some miracles are beyond even him."  She leans in.  "Can you work with it?"

"For you, darling, of course.  I'll text you when I get anything useful out of it."  Ellie and the tech trade air kisses, one on each cheek, before the inspector rushes off to join her team on the landing pad.

"Where were you?" Marco asks, and Ellie's eyes are enigmatic, transparent like glass and yet he can't see anything behind them.

"Checking a source on the audio.  Nothing yet."

She looks out the window to the rapidly disappearing building.  The weight of Marco's gaze, even from behind his sunglasses, is heavy on the back of her neck, but she doesn't fidget, doesn't twitch.

BELGRADE, SERBIA

2.

"Inspectors Seeger and Wilkinson from the Hague, Minister," the receptionist says before allowing the two of them entrance into the office.

Minister Ilić is a tall man with more muscles than is usual for a politician of his rank, with a groomed salt-and-pepper beard and sharp green eyes that Arabela senses she can't escape.  Luke shakes his hand, then Arabela, and the minister indicates the chairs in front of him, wide comfortable armchairs.  Someone leans into their space (young man, beardless, French) and asks if they'd like tea or coffee.

"No, thank you," Arabela doesn't quite meet his eyes, keeping her own on the minister's movements.

"I'm glad to see the ICC taking such an acute interest in the death of Mr. Baris. I have already met with the ambassador, of course, to extend my condolences.  It's my understanding he had a girlfriend?"

"We haven't been able to locate her," Luke says instead.  "Do you know anything about her?"

"No, I'm sorry.  I don't meddle in any affairs of the embassies in my country unless they need me.  I'm certainly busy enough with trade and commerce."  The Minister of Commerce smiles.  It's _bland_ , unthreatening, and Luke tenses.  "What can I do to help?"

"We're speaking to ministers of Serbia due to some recent intelligence," Arabela says.  "Did you know Mr. Baris in any deeper capacity?"

"Only as a face I saw whenever I met with the ambassador.  He kept to himself."  Ilić steeples his fingers together over his stomach.  "You suspect some kind of involvement of ministers?"

Less bland.  More dangerous.

"Possibly only tangentially," Luke assures him, mimicking the mild grimace on the minister's own face.  "We have to follow every lead.  Do you know why Mr. Baris was in Vlorë yesterday, Minister?  Or why any member of the Albanian embassy would be there?"

"I have no indication of any trade meetings, so no.  I can't help you."

"Do you have any reason to suspect someone would want to harm you?" Arabela's poker face is the thing of legends.  Ilić raises his eyebrows in a split reaction that is unlikely to be feigned.

"Other than the usual political maneuvers, no.  You think this is a plot?"

"We have to cover all possibilities," Luke spares him a charming, boyish grin.

Behind Ilić's pleasant face, Arabela can smell heroin and blood, can see the desperation of those working the heroin route through the Balkans, and she can only act and act until they're liberated from the depths of his lair and no closer to a solution.

VLORË, ALBANIA

3.

It's still too fucking hot even though it's dipped two degrees and there's the occasional breeze that really only makes it worse because now everyone can remember what it's like to be cool, for at least the four seconds each time the wind blows.  Ellie doesn't usually take her work calls outside, but things have started to blend worlds and her dance to keep work and life separate is precarious.

"Are you certain?" Ellie asks.  Her voice is high and tight, like walking on a wire.  "You can't be wrong about this, Tania."

" _Am I ever?_ " the technician scoffs at the other end of the line.  " _Don't insult me, ljubimac._ "

"Yes, all right, point made." Ellie frowns at the ground.  "Tell me again what you've translated."

By the time she hangs up, the bell has gotten louder, closer, brazen in their shrieking.  Her manicured nails scratch a steady line up and down the edge of her phone while she works it all over in her mind.

Her phone chimes with the arrival of a text message.

**From: Carine Strand**

_Any leads on if Porter is connected?_

Ellie responds in the negative, watches texts arrive from the rest of the team saying the same thing, and she clips back into the café where Sebastian is on what must be his sixth espresso.

"I spoke to the club, and went digging," Sebastian says aloud without looking at Ellie as she hovers on the other side of the table.  "Porter joined up only three months ago."

"So much for a lifelong football fan.  No connection with the heroin yet?"  Sebastian shrugs helplessly.   "Girlfriend?"

Sebastian makes a curious noise.  "Texts on his phone are a bit strange."  He pulls them up.  "Looks like Porter spent a while meeting someone multiple times.  Different locations, different times, but always after the workday and on weekends.  Burner phone.  Untraceable.  And destroyed now - no answer when I called."

Ellie rubs her fingertips together.  "They're meeting all over the Balkans," she says, and can't keep the admiring tone out of her voice.  "Look, that's the country code for Macedonia."

"Secret tryst?"

"With whom?  The Queen of England?"

4.

"So, he's being told to do this.  Someone's pulling his strings around."

Ellie narrows her eyes in thought while Marco brainstorms out loud and ducks her head to her phone, texting now with fluid certainty.  The certainty that comes with the understanding of what _majstor_ means and how close it could sound to _ministar_ in a crowded Albanian street.

The bell is deafening.

(Later, Ellie slips into a quiet alcove and says things like _miracle house_ and _minister ilić_ and the person on the other end of the line says things like _you're going to get in so much trouble_ and _Serbian private club catering to BDSM elite_.  It makes her head spin.)

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

5.

There are purpling bruises of sleeplessness under Ellie's eyes, deeper and sunken by the harsh lighting of the computer lab.  On the screen are scads of articles and photographs of the series of sex scandals the Minister had been embroiled in back in the 80's ( _more than one_ , like he couldn't keep in his pants for more than a couple of months).  Ellie stares at them, and then at the notes on the House of Miracles.

It's almost an urban legend, an erotic myth a la Story of O, sometimes she would put away and ignore if it weren't for the fact that she got it from the one person she trusted implicitly.  It helped that they had _been_ there.

They were running into dead ends everywhere else.  Nothing connected Porter to the Ambassador nor the Minister, no evidence as to what Baris was bringing them, no idea who fired the rifle nor the pistol.

And so, Ellie fires off a text to Carine:

**To: Carine Strand**

_Found something in the audio recording.  Show you tomorrow at the office._

 

DAY THREE

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS 

6.

He called her _Miss Schadenfreude_ because he didn't believe she would ever come up with anything that would be truly useful, but here he sits, staring at her in private disbelief through her whole presentation.  She holds herself erect like she's hiding something, or physically restraining a blush (and the fact that she says 'BDSM' without a single pink flare to her cheeks or a stutter is a feat of either acting or self-assurance, neither of which he thought her capable of).

She doesn't quite answer the questions, doesn't tell them where she got the information on the House of Miracles from.

And just like that, his interest in Ellie Delfont-Bogard is a little _sharper_ , a little more wild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's going on? Nobody knows, _not even me_.
> 
> Which is a serious problem considering this is a case fic. (Personal opinion: needs more sex, but at least we're all caught up now.)


	5. Chapter 5

DAY THREE

1.

Her insides feel too big for her skin, like she's going to split apart at the seams beneath the stress of his regard.  To her credit, she does nothing but tilt her chin up a little higher and smile a little brighter.

(And if in the secret spaces she can see muscled arms around her frame and firm hands leaving behind red handprints, no one knows but her and the night.)

 

UMKA, SERBIA

2.

When they find Porter, he's sporting a bruise along the crevice of his jawline and a hard look in his eyes.  Luke's gaze lingers a little too long on the bruise as Arabela introduces them, and his teeth clench hard enough to make the tendons in his neck stand out.

"What is it?" he asks them brusquely, on the doorstep.

No invites into his home today, Luke surmises.

"Have you heard anything about the House of Miracles?" Arabela goes straight for the gut and it _works_.

Porter's whole body seizes in surprise, like someone's dumped ice down his back, and Arabela's lips curl up in victory.  Luke takes the chance for the two-punch.

"Is that where you got that bruise?"

Porter takes a physical step away from them, just one, and teeters in his threshold.  Uncertainty and fear war across his face.

"I don't," his voice is thin, reedy, and then, "I think I want a lawyer."

"I think you'd better come with us, hadn't you?" Luke laughs.

 

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

3.

Porter is sitting in the interview room with his hands in his lap, gripping each other so his biceps tense, and staring just off the side of the camera to a blank wall. On the other side of the glass, Ellie examines him with a curious curl to her eyebrows, her lips parted as though she thought to say something and abandoned it.  Behind her, Arabela waits for Luke's go sign and Michel sits in a chair with a file folder on his crossed legs and a stern, unreadable look on his face.  Ellie doesn't waver when Arabela leaves to join Luke, and the two inspector's slide into place across from Porter.

"The most interesting thing about you used to be your rap sheet," Luke says, opening up the file and sliding the information over to Arabela, whose gaze doesn't waver from where it's boring into Porter.  "Aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon - big stakes in the US."  His eyes flick from the paper to Porter's chiselled expression.  " _Now_ , though, now the most interesting thing about you is the fact that you seem to be connected with the House of Miracles."

Next to Porter, his lawyer leans over and whispers into his ear, and Porter's left hand clenches into a fist. Arabela glances at Luke with a raised eyebrow.

"Mr. Porter, do you know what the House of Miracles is?" Arabela asks.

"What's said, yes, I do," he says, and the lawyer twitches a little.

"Are you a member of their circle?" with a whispered countenance like it's something to be ashamed of, and Porter's gaze slices to his lawyer but he says nothing.  "I think you are.  I think that's where you got that bruise," the purpled monstrosity across his face.

Luke, for all that he goes pliant and soft when Arabela is around, radiates dominance like he was born to it in that room.  Ellie can see the narrowing of the lawyer's eyes and she taps her foot as she thinks.  Dorn's gaze drops to her shoe, but she doesn't stop, doesn't see, because she's too busy _looking_ at what's happening.

"I must have misunderstood the reason we're here.  I thought you brought my client in to ask him about whatever relation you've construed with the shooting in Albania."  The lawyer's _posturing_.  Ellie bites down on her tongue to keep the laughter inside.

"Oh, we haven't gotten off topic.  The House of Miracles is _involved_."  Porter's pupils dilate and Luke slouches back in his chair and the lawyer's hand reaches out to grip a pinch of flesh of Porter's side when he takes a breath.

"He's a sub," Ellie declares, and she punches the mic button on her headset, sending it directly to the comm attached to Arabela.  "He's a sub and he's been ordered not to talk.  It'll take bigger fish than this to rattle Porter into speaking.  The lawyer's been sent as his muzzle."

Arabela looks contemplatively at the lawyer.  "You said your name was… Killian."  The lawyer glowers.  "You know, usually, the best way to make sure your client gets the best deal is to have them cooperate.  Instead of muzzling them."

Porter's left eye twitches.

"Who did you say hired you again?" Arabela asks the question like everyone already knows the answer.

What happens in the room after that goes too fast for Ellie to follow, but when she next blinks, Porter is being hustled out by Killian and Arabela looks satisfied and Luke's already hollering for Sebastian to run a check on the lawyer.

"Jesus," Ellie mutters and she slinks off to join Sebastian in the lab.

(She knows Dorn follows her progress out of the room with that too-sharp, hawkish gaze.  She can't meet his eyes.)  


4.

"First," and today, now, Sebastian has a long list because the darkness under his eyes is actually more noticeable than usual and there's a pen stuck haphazardly behind _both_ his ears, "I've matched the voice pattern on the recording to Porter's voice in a semi-legal fashion.  It's nothing scientifically sound so the more we get him to talk in a recorded setting the better."

"So it's definite he was at the scene, then?" Luke presses and Sebastian throws his hands up.

"Seventy-five," he stops and curses in German. "Sixty-five percent.  Best I can offer," which everyone knows is not good enough, yet.  "Second, some _completely legal_ excursions into the Belgrade payroll systems has found us the six degrees of separation between our lawyer Delmin Killian of Albanian-Irish extraction, and the Minister."

General pause around the table and a certain level of eyelid twitching from Seeger.  Sebastian sighs.

"Killian's the Minister's _very personal_ attorney." He cuts a look at Ellie, but her eyes are lost in thought, glazed over and staring at the wall.  "Ellie?"

"It's all so incestuous," she remarks in a dazed tone, as though she's speaking aloud without knowing it.  "Ambition is a man's greatest madness."

They stare at her, and Arabela chokes a little on her next words. "Duchess of Malfi, Ellie?  Really?"

Her eyes go sharp again and snap from the wall to Arabela's face.  "I think Porter is the Minister's sub, and Killian is the muzzle."  She frowns.  "Which means with that beating, he'd had to have gone to see the Minister between the first time we visited and today."

"I'll see what I can do," Sebastian says in weary amusement. "If your speculations can be put on hold for a moment?"  She cringes in apology.  "Third, forensics has turned up nothing in the possible sniper positions.  Whoever it is, they're damned good.  I'm running background checks on both the Minister's and the Ambassador's personnel, but amidst everything else, it'll take a while."

He rubs his forehead.  "Fourth? _Scheisse_.  Fourth, I decoded a couple of the location codes into coordinates and run them through a property and cartographical search.  Tell me what the similarities are!" in a horrifyingly accurate rendition of a demented kindergarten teacher.

Ellie already knows what it's going to be.

"Secluded properties, large enough to host parties of twenty to forty people, with some kind of natural foliage on at least one side," she lets Luke say as she presses her lips together and lets the pictures continue their slideshow.  "You're thinking…"

"Mm," Sebastian mutters.

"The House of Miracles is a party bus," Ellie says heavily.

They all find this inexplicably hilarious.

BELGRADE, SERBIA

5.

"Party bus," Carine mutters at her phone with a deep frown in her brow.  "You must be joking."  Marco, behind her, cracks a grin that he wipes away when she turns to look for him.  "Well?"

"It's more than we had before, but there's nothing here about the heroin.  Just because Miracle House moves around the Balkans doesn't mean it's transporting heroin with it."

"Doesn't mean it's _not_ ," Carine says petulantly.  Marco snorts.  "Connecting Ilić with Killian and Porter gives us more leverage.  Even though we have no evidence that Porter double-tapped Baris."  Carine considers the front of the ministerial building.  "I detest politicians."

"You work in _The Hague_ ," Marco grumbles into her ear as they go inside.  "You picked the wrong career."

"To what do I owe the continued pleasure, inspectors?" the minister greets them when they gain access without fuss.

"Do you know who Roberto Porter is, Minister?" Marco asks.  Carine eases herself into a chair and sees the flutter at the corner of Ilić's mouth.

"The name doesn't ring a bell," he lies through his blindingly white teeth.

"Surprising, given that Mr. Killian came to represent him at ICC today," Marco leans on the chair Carine is sitting in, refusing to take a seat with his arms crossed.

_Ah_.  It's that game.

"Mr. Killian is not on retainer, Inspector.  He's free to take clients as he pleases."  He leans forward on the desk and Carine can't help but think that he's interested like a spider is in its next meal.

"Do you know Jameson and Associates?" Marco keeps on the offensive, naming the secondary attorney's office that Killian was hired out of, and Carine just tinges a weary smile with apology at the minister.  "Because they certainly know you, and the Serbian call that was made to get Killian to ICC."

_Six degrees of separation, indeed_ , Carine thinks wryly.

"Serbia is an entire country."  He doesn't conceal his amusement.  He's totally unruffled and it sets Marco's teeth on edge.  "Inspectors, why are you here badgering my offices with this?"

Carine intersects.  "Minister Ilić, you understand that we are taking this very seriously and want the fullest extent of cooperation between all parties. And of course, that includes the sharing of information." _Careful, Carine_.

"Well," the minister looks at her with something like interest storming in those impenetrable eyes, "I certainly understand the need considering the situation.  Killian is hardly the only lawyer on retainer."

"Though he is the only one that you have celebratory drinks with after successfully fending off three harassment lawsuits."   _Marco really needs to be put through the diplomacy seminar_ , Carine broods. _Again._

All at once, Ilić's face shuts down into a blank mask.  "Are you here to accuse me of conspiracy?"

"Certainly not," Carine soothes the savage beast and pointedly presses the heel of one boot onto Marco's toe.  "But we are curious about, Minister, what looks like a related trades group or traveling business by the name of the House of Miracles."

The Minister grunts. "God, not this again." He slumps into his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose in a startling display of exhaustion.  The key word, _display_ , is not forgotten.  "Look, they dragged that urban myth through interrogation in the last court case and nothing came of it.  There's nothing there."

Marco and Carine very carefully don't look at each other.

"As you say, Minister," Carine says in syrupy tone.

Somewhere in the distance, there is the baying of hounds.

 

THE HAGUE,  NETHERLANDS

6.

The problem is, of course, that Ellie rationally knows that they will not get anything simply through interrogation and forensics.  Not this time.  She knows how these things _work_ , which is simultaneously quite useful and very unfortunate for her circumstances, and she knows the House of Miracles will be impossible to find any kind of evidence on without actually _going in_.

She sighs at her mug of hot cocoa.

Well, it could be worse, she supposes moodily.  She could have to explain in detail her checkered past with the kinky elitist social circle to Michel Dorn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is totally not beta read at all, and mostly ends up getting pulled out of a hat while avoiding my thesis. Thank you, graduate school.
> 
> I swear to you, there will actually be kinky sex in this, if that's what you're here for.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am definitely speeding things up a little and dropping Ellie in it.
> 
> Thank you for your encouraging comments and notes.
> 
> (As usual, this work is totally unbeta'd/edited because I'm using it as a distraction from the train wreck that is my thesis. If you're expecting miracles... well, actually.)

DAY FOUR

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

1.

"Do we need to talk about where you're getting your information from?" Michel asks her while she sludges through financial files with single-minded determination.

Ellie's neck cracks when she looks up at him, her eyes going wide before she can school herself into indifference. Michel's bushy white eyebrows arc into his forehead and she fights the furious blush that crawls up her neck.

"I don't think that's necessary. It's perfectly legal," she replies primly.

"Mm-hm." He hovers indecisively at the lab door. "Just remember I still meet with your father once a month, dear."

When he leaves, she cringes. So much for not talking about it.

2.

Protecting sources is nothing _new_ , but with a case that is clearly going to court eventually, assuming the whole of the universe aligns with the stars in good judgment, it makes it tricky to keep their names out of the witness box. Ellie's not sure if Michel covers for her, or if everyone is too drained after the heavy influx of flights through the Balkans, but no one stops her when she creeps off base to the little cafe by the waterfront. It's far away enough from the Court that the tension unwinds from her shoulders and when she sits down across from the lady dressed in a sharp green suit, her smile is almost back to normal. There's two coffee cups on the table.

The lady looks up at her, sharp dark eyes caressing Ellie's face like a physical touch.

"You look a wreck, darling," she says archly in a faint German accent, and Ellie sips her coffee in an attempt to cover up her flinch. "Drink some more coffee, there's a girl." She pats Ellie's hand and Ellie twists her lips up at the corners. "We'll get down to the unpleasantness after." She stirs her spoon through the coffee in her cup.

It takes the lady a moment to say, "You have been around Americans too long." Ellie looks down in surprise at the black coffee she's drunk half of without tasting. "You'll guarantee my name doesn't come into it, I assume."

Ellie stares down into the coffee. "I have no other choice," with a vague accusatory tone.

The lady shrugs with casual elegance, uncaring. "This is not my scene. I do not _like_ the Balkans," with an air of aristocratic disgust that has Ellie simultaneously in despair and amusement. "But I have been invited in the past."

As if appearing by magic, there's a manila envelope between them now, sealed with a small metal twist.

"It doesn't work, my dear, if I'm exposed," the lady says gently into the silence, and stops.

Ellie sips her coffee while she thinks of something to say. "You won't be," she finally says, with all the power she has none of.

This is a _stupid_ idea. A stupid plan.

She's doing it anyway.

"Promise me, little one," and her hand reaches out to grip Ellie's, strength in those long slim fingers that no one expects. Her face sharpens, a bloodhound scenting prey, and Ellie goes still at the other end of the booth. Her skirt squeaks across the red leather, sweat pools between her thighs.

"I promise, Mistress," Ellie breathes, under the bustle of the cafe and sealing the deal at sunrise.

3.

"You've done something."

Ellie startles and her hand sweeps out and the plastic teacup careens off the table and lands on the floor, spilling hot Earl Grey tea all over the tile of her little alcove in the library. She blinks up at Marco, who has materialized out of nowhere in her - the - doorway. Her bare heel kicks back along the tile grooves, the only other indicator of her nervousness now, among her preternatural stillness.

"When did you get in?" she asks weakly, a beat too late.

"An hour ago," he replies, dismissive. "Carine needed food," _when doesn't she_ , goes unvoiced, "What have you done?"

"I," and Ellie derails the response with a flabbergasted expression. Marco's eyebrows have discovered new depths between his eyes, and his mouth is a flat line of disapproval. Deep in Ellie's gut, something living twists over, and bares its belly.

Between them, the pool of tea seeps into the grout, spreads across the gulf like a warning sign.

"Ellie," Michel says mildly from behind Marco. "Could I see you in my office please?"

She takes the out with two trembling, grateful hands, and a wide, false smile at Marco. "You'll get a towel and clean up the tea, won't you?"

She leaves before he can reply beyond a huff of disbelief.

Granted, going with Michel is not actually saving her from anything, just changing her interrogator.

"If you won't tell me who she is, Ellie…" Michel lifts the photographs from where they're spread across his desk. "There is nothing actionable here. Just many high profile faces in worrisome, high-quality camera work."

She twists in place, fingers digging into the side of her thigh, clinging to the smooth texture of her skirt. This is exhausting.

"Nothing?"

Michel collects them. "We'll run them through the necessary databases, show the team, but Ellie… we're looking for heroin. Not…" He rubs his eyes. "You always did cause trouble, Ellie."

She offers a shade of a smile, an impish wrinkle at the corners of her eyes.

"Get out of my office," he says fondly.

4.

Carine stares up at the ceiling of Sebastian's office, her hands folded over her stomach. Sebastian's unerring focus on his computer causing the keys of his mechanical keyboard to clack rhythmically and loudly throughout the room, with a suspicious echo following each furious finger-punch.

"I despise politicians," she states suddenly. Predictably, Sebastian's only response is a snort, and a mutter in German. "Do you get the feeling we've run headlong into a brick wall?"

Sebastian sighs and turns in his chair, inspecting Carine's form with a sharp eye. She's slumped down in the chair in an unusual display of careless gracelessness, her shoulders drooped and her chin tipped up, one knee crooked behind the curve of the chair.

"A lot of speculation and not a lot of evidence. Do you need to question Porter again?"

Carine makes an irritated noise. "Me and what evidence? Killian will just squirrel him away again," and if she had been with more energy, Sebastian suspects she would have hit the table. "Maybe we're barking up the wrong tree."

Sebastian rolls his eyes. "Christ, don't say that, Carine." Impossibly, his accent thickens as he speaks, his _r_ rolling harder as he considers the entire pile of nothing so far. "What do we have?"

After a beat, it's like a switch has been flipped. Carine drags a transparent board out from somewhere - briefly, Sebastian wonders if the people in Supplies hate them as much as he suspects - and she starts to scrawl in her nearly illegible handwriting across the plexiglass pane.

First, _Minister Ilić_ goes near the center and next to it, _heroin route - Balkans_. Another cloud appears off with _Robert Porter_ and _Baris_ and _Ambassador Kastrati_. After a moment, she adds a cloud for _Killian_. Sebastian watches as she writes in quotes from the Serbian audio, tags in House of Miracles, draws lines connecting Porter with the street Baris died on and Killian. She's halfway through writing the country codes associated with the texts on Baris' phone when Ellie steps through the door.

She has her shoulders hunched up in that particular way that screams of guilt.

Carine refocuses her gaze through the web of chaos on the board, and Ellie shows her whatever is in her hands.

Photographs.

Sebastian stills in his chair.

"Where did you get this?" Carine snaps at last, after a teetering, breathless moment of shock. Ellie doesn't step out of range of Carine's wrath. "Who _gave_ you this?"

"It isn't important," Ellie spreads the photos across the other side of the board, sticking them in place haphazardly with magnets.

Sebastian doesn't know whether to look harder or look away. His face feels hot, and he wonders why Ellie's skin is still so snow-pale, unaffected.

"Well? Is there _anything?"_ Ellie's voice cracks partway through.

"Give me a second!" Carine replies, sharp like the jagged edges of glass they are all walking on. Sebastian still has not figured out how to unfreeze from his position in his chair. Ellie looks away from the board, to the room beyond the lab windows, blue eyes unseeing. Carine's breathing is very evenly spaced, controlled.

"Go back to finding the connection between Porter and Ilić, Sebastian," Carine finally states, her tone cool and in control, and Sebastian's chair snaps around as if released from a tensed rubber band.

He can still see the photographs in the reflection of his monitor.

5.

Marco has not actually left Ellie's office, and she hasn't returned. He had watched as she marched, twenty minutes ago, from Michel's office in the direction of Sebastian's lab with a grim set to her lips and a manila envelope tucked under her arm. Had she been anyone other than herself, he would have heard the firm click-clack of heels on the floor.

But she _is…_

It's an unproductive train of thought. He flips the pen up into the air and nearly misses the catch when her phone buzzes on the desk, abandoned in her haste to flee - him? His questions? As it stands, he can still taste the energy vibrating off her lithe body, can still see the imprint of her guilty, excited, secret smile, the one that she shared with only herself.

The phone buzzes again.

And then again, insistently, for a series of vibrations that last for several seconds.

Well.

Marco never pretended to be anything other than himself. And insatiably curious.

It might be important.

He picks up the phone.

She keeps it locked, like any good detective for the ICC, but certain apps still reveal information in their notifications on the lock screen.

Like her personal chat apps.

6.

"Why is Lana on our sex and murder board?" Luke asks aloud into the bullpen.

Carine comes to a stuttering halt in the middle of her rant about _proper evidential procedures_ at Ellie, who looks a little pale and faint around the edges. Behind Luke, Seeger is torn between examining Ellie's face and looking back over her shoulder at the board like she's seen a ghost.

 _"Who?"_ Carine says dangerously.

Luke waggles his eyebrows. "The one in the gold chains and not much else. Probably inappropriate for office wear, I suppose."

_"Luke!"_

"Kastrati's personal assistant," Seeger sighs. "She is… with him, in the photographs." She pauses. "And where did those come from?"

Ellie cranes her neck back and sighs.


	7. Chapter 7

DAY FOUR

1.

"Lana Janko, Serbian national."  Sebastian flicks through the slides on his computer and Lana's face in a photograph that is the kind of photo one finds on a work badge illuminates the side of his face, the stubble that grows there after four days of lowered hygienic focus.  "On paper, she's the consummate professional. She has a spotless record as an employee of the Minister, going back six years."

"What's she hiding?" Strand asks, eyes focused up on the projector screen.  Down the table, Luke snorts and opens his mouth. " _Do not._ "  Carine doesn't even look over at him.

Arabela's lips twitch up into a smirk at her partner, and Sebastian ignores them regally in favor of bringing up a photo of Lana at a gun range.

As one, the detectives all hold their breath.  Sebastian looks _insufferably_ smug.  Ellie isn't sure where to look because behind them, there is still at least one photograph of Lana's body bared to the soft lighting of an expensive chandelier.  And standing by the door, his spine lax against the frame and arms crossed across his broad chest, is Constante, his eyes dark and his face curiously blank.

He hasn't said a single word since answering Carine's summons to the conference room.  Ellie thinks he might actually seem _more_ broody than normal.

"She's the Belgrade local rifle champion for four years running, but never made it to any sort of national competition even though she has the scores to wipe them off their feet."

"And she moonlights in her spare time as a sniper assassin?" Carine asks, incredulity coloring her voice.

Sebastian shrugs. "It's possible.  I have no evidence for that either way."  He turns his sharp gaze on the blonde inspector with _knowing_.  "But now you have reason to interrogate her, don't you?"

Carine flicks her eyes from Sebastian, to Ellie, who stills in her chair.  Her fingers splay out flat across the table, and both feet stop skimming the floor.

"Luke. Arabela."  Carine jerks her head to the door.  "Go set up an interview with her.  Sebastian, have you found anything on Porter and the minister yet?"

"Nothing conclusive," he admits.  "I think it would be more useful to focus on Janko."

Carine's lips press together until the rims go white.  "Do it," she continues curtly.  "And find me Baris' girlfriend.  She can't be a _ghost_.  I'm going to go update Dorn."  She drags her eyes reluctantly back to Ellie, and then to Marco.  "Keep her out of trouble, will you?"

Marco tilts his left eyebrow, and Ellie looks away from them as color suffuses her cheeks, pink and warm.  Carine arches both of hers in response.

She always was more perceptive than Marco likes to give her credit for.  He inclines his head, and Carine claps his shoulder on her way out.

"I think I'm going to have to ask you to do something tasteless," she murmurs into his ear, low and hard and guilty.  Marco glances at the back of Ellie's head, but says nothing.

2.

"Where did you get the photos from?" he asks her erect back.  The shadows have crept in at last, night now certainly fallen after Luke and Arabela's departure for Serbia.  Catrine had not yet returned from the ICC.

Ellie has not left the comfort of her zone, not even for Sebastian.

Here, now, in the silence of the dark, Marco can recall with acidic clarity the secrets he'd unveiled from her phone.  It makes his skin feel grimy, the way he's violated her space that way for naught but _curiosity_.  And he's not a _nice_ man, but some things…

Some things are sacred.  Unbreakable.

Ellie still hasn't even looked at him.

Marco eases himself into the nearest chair.  She shifts some books around on the shelves to give herself something to do.  Marco's gaze gravitates, as if magnetized, to the pale sweep of the nape of her neck, the soft blonde fuzz collecting there from where she's pinned it to her scalp in a harsh bun.

"I know what you're thinking," he tells her.  "It's too dangerous."

Ellie turns around, spins on the heel of one foot, and tips her chin up belligerently.

"Do you see any other way?" comes out bitter and resigned between her white teeth.

Marco releases a long sigh through his nose, like an old and weary dragon.  Ellie watches him warily.

"I suppose we shall have to wait and see," he says quietly.  "Can you be patient for that long?"

Ellie's whole body kicks back a couple of inches and Marco can see the wheels and the cogs turning.   _Don't overanalyze it_ , he wants to say, but he's seen the photos, seen the sights of some bodies in wax and chains and red marks and others in leather and suits and diamonds, and he wants to see Ellie's picture-perfect British composure  _wrecked_.

He doesn't wince outwardly at the thought, but buries it into a box again.

"I think I'd better get some sleep," Ellie replies at last.  She dips her head down and back up, as if examining his form slumped in the chair.  "And you should as well."  She picks up her purse, tucks her feet into her loafers, and pauses at the doorway, just seven or so inches from his shoulder.

She flicks the light off.  "Good night, Inspector."

 

DAY FIVE

BELGRADE, SERBIA

3.

They intercept Lana on her way to work, the two ICC detectives with wide smiles that don't reach their eyes.  Lana's sunglasses slide down her nose and she purses her red-painted lips, a stark contrast to her gray pinstripe skirt suit and matched perfectly with her bright red pumps.  Luke's eyes go to the chain around her neck, dipping under her hem.

"Good morning, detectives," she says cordially in Serbian before switching to her accented English.  "Are you on your way to the ministry?"

"You could say that," Arabela confirms.  "Will you walk and talk with us?"

A flash of unease crosses her face, but it's gone before either of them can do much more other than take a step back when she steps forward, shoves her glasses back up her nose.  Next to Luke's loose black, slightly ill-fitting suit and Arabela's leather jacket and dark jeans, Lana is every inch the consummate professional businesswoman.

"Until we arrive to the ministry.  How can I help you?"  Her unwavering icy control is back.

Luke gets the impression, one that makes his stomach twist, that this is the kind of person that could sit behind a rifle for hours, waiting for a shot.  The fact that she's in flashy high heels and a suit makes no difference.

"Do you have much contact with Minister Ilić in your usual work?" Luke asks as they swing into step with her.  Arabela can feel the way her stride increases to cover more ground.

"I have some with his offices and assistants, but not personally.  It depends on what kind of trade deals between Serbia and Albania need personal meetings with the Ambassador."  She stops at a crosswalk and, in a strangely docile move, presses the button for the pedestrian light.

Belgrade, around them, is all ancient architecture, towering buildings and squashed complexes, old beige brick and adobe red paint.  It feels somber and careless at once, made of dusty and rusted over old-world dignity, and Lana is a beacon of sleek, pressed composure, out of place and time.

Luke thinks for a moment that _this_ Lana would be more at home in The Hague, and the one draped in golden chains and kohled eyes in a city like the one.

He ruthlessly squashes the thought.

"How much time do you spend on the Ambassador's work?" Arabela asks, as if marveling the amount of time she spends at the office.  "Especially now that you lack another assistant."

Lana's head twitches, as if she wants to toss her hair like an angry horse.  "I am more than just a human Blackberry, Inspector Seeger," and she says her last name in flawless Dutch.  "This is my life."

Arabela muses, "Yes, I suppose you are enjoying serving," a beat, "his offices."

Even though it's a clumsy attempt, they both see the way she nearly misses a step while crossing the street with them.  Once they're safely on the sidewalk, Lana halts.

"What is it you want?"

Arabela shows her the photo on her phone, kindly cropped to her face and Kastrati's face and the vague impressions of others around them.  Lana inhales the humid, sweltering Belgrade air.

"You really never dealt with the Minister personally?" Luke asks, all _kinds_ of implications in his lilting tone.

She responds slowly, reading off some kind of internal script.  "What consenting adults do in the privacy of a home is not of any concern of the ICC.  You'll forgive me, inspectors, but I need to go to work."

"Miss Janko.  You don't think those are the only photos, do you?" Arabela smiles, and Lana's inhalation leaves her lungs all in a rush.  "We'd like to ask you some questions at our offices."

Lana tilts her head to the sky.  "I'm calling a lawyer," but she goes with them, pliant in a way neither of them expected her to be.

 

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

4.

He wasn't looking for it, is the problem.  He hadn't expected everything to be about _sex_ .  It's usually about money, in drug cases.  So when Sebastian finds Agim Baris' face in one of the photos, in the background, not particularly with anyone, he realizes he has to go through all of them _again_.

He should be making Ellie help him, but the poor girl looks like she's still a little shell-shocked from - everything.  Whatever everything entails.  At any other point, she'd be flustered by the amount of attention Marco has been paying her, but right now, Ellie reacts as if he's not there, as if his fingers haven't pressed into her shoulder blades exactly five times in the last ten hours, as if he hasn't refilled her tea mug three times in the same span of time, as if he hasn't been hovering just a few feet in front of her in silence while watching her face for intervals of exactly seventeen minutes.

It is _irritating_.

Sebastian sweeps past Marco on his way to get coffee.  "Did you know that wiping people's credit history is actually not as simple as just making it worse?"

Marco startles, and Sebastian stares at him with narrowed eyes, and then gets his coffee.  When he goes back, Marco has retreated to the other end of the office.

Appeased, Sebastian settles back down to work with Ellie at the other side of his computer, so he can keep an eye on her.

 

5.

Carine watches from the other side of the glass as Arabela shows Lana the photograph of Baris at the party.  There is no visible collar or other mark of claim, though half his body is shielded by the crowd.  Lana's eyes drop to the image, and stay there.

"You knew Mister Baris," Arabela says.

"Only to speak to," Lana replies.  "These parties, they're large.  I don't know everyone."  She taps his face.  "He's no one special." And she shrugs.  "Was."

The cool way she fixes her tense bothers Luke - if she _is_ the sniper, she wouldn't mess up the tense, surely?  Arabela, however, has no such reservations.

"What was he like?" she presses.  Lana shakes her head.  "Who did he come with, to the parties?"  Lana doesn't say anything.  "Miss Janko, I don't need to tell you it does not look good for you right now, certainly?  You have means, and opportunity," they had checked her schedule, found it _lacking_ at around the times Agim had met his death, "and there are many motives we could choose from."

"Motive bingo is a favorite game," Luke steps in.  "Did someone ask you to kill him?"

" _What_."  It's a flat intonation, not even a question.

"You're good with a gun," tapping the file.  "Four years running, top of the class."  Lana fixes her eyes on Arabela now, but otherwise makes no comment.  "Maybe Ambassador Kastrati hired you for _that_ reason, and not this one," with a gesture to the photographs.

"I want my lawyer," she suddenly says, and refuses to speak to them anymore.

Carine rubs her hand over her eyes and clicks out of the interrogation room to find Ellie standing quiescent and small outside the door with both hands folded over her stomach.  She looks down at the younger girl, and deflates.

"She isn't talking, and she's probably not going to.  I think we have enough to charge her, but convincing a judge of that without a gun match at least will be…"

Ellie waits for Arabela and Luke to come out before saying, "Let me try."

Carine arcs her eyebrows.  "To talk to her?  She's asked for a lawyer."

"I know." Ellie frowns.  "He's not coming."

 

6.

Ellie had spent a long time staring into space.  She had been tangentially aware of Constante's hovering presence, the way he'd been touching her as though he'd always done so.  (Her body is also aware that she has had a _lot_ of tea).  But she's been watching the clock, and thinking about what she knows about the House of Miracles…

> **piQuance** _(23:24)_ the green lady sent me
> 
> you want to know about miracle haus
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(23:25)_ yes
> 
> **piQuance** _(23:27)_ rules first
> 
> and consequences for breaking them
> 
> usually permanent
> 
> think.
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(07:35)_ understood

Carine is sharing a look with the other two inspectors, but Ellie is firm.   _Only me_ , she had said.   _Let me try_.  She kept secrets behind her teeth like bullets, but if she could get Lana to talk, if she could get even one word that put Baris and the minister in the same room together, maybe it would be worth it.

"Let her try."  They all looked to Michel, where he's appeared in his somber black overcoat and dim eyes behind flashing glasses beneath the harsh lighting.  "It can't hurt."

"One wrong move, and I'm sending someone in with you," Carine relents.  Ellie gives no pause, just opens the door and steps inside.  Lana looks over.

> **piQuance** _(08:11)_ 1 coded speak or private places only
> 
> don't be recorded
> 
> make the fight club joke, go on
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(08:13)_ I wouldn't dare.
> 
> **piQuance** _(08:13)_ Cheek.
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(08:15)_ do you have identifying signs?

Against her opposing thigh and away from the camera, Ellie makes what looks like a _K_ sign in American Sign Language, with a crooked index finger.  Lana's eyes dart to the symbol and, in response, under the table, her right hand forms the first half of the Yugoslavian sign for _M_. 

> **piQuance** _(08:16)_ yes.
> 
> _[piQuance has sent you a link]_
> 
> you must be certain

"I'm waiting for my lawyer," Lana says, watching Ellie like a deer looks for a stalking animal in the shadows as she crosses the room, pulls out the chair, and sits at an angle that hides Lana's hands, and her own.

"Lana," Ellie breathes.  "Killian isn't coming."

Her lips go white beneath her make-up.  In the lights of the interrogation room, her pupils dilate in fear.  Ellie taps the table with two extended fingers, once, twice.  Lana's eyes close. 

> **piQuance** _(08:20)_ 2 no one will come for you if you break rule 1
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(08:21)_ how will you know?
> 
> **piQuance** _(08:23)_ if it's even suspected
> 
> it's over

"You can't be serious," Lana exhales, and she rubs her fingers over her skirt.  "Very well," her voice sharpens to a point.  "You're _new_ ," she accuses.

Ellie's lips quirk upward.  "You could say that.  I certainly haven't been in this room on my own before."  Lana looks to the pane of glass behind Ellie's head, then back to her face.  "Do you think we'll be able to get a warrant to search your house, Miss Janko? Test your guns?"

Lana grinds her teeth together.  Ellie asks it like a question, but she knows that Dorn has arrived with a warrant in hand to be executed by the ICC and Belgrade police.

"I think you'll be very lucky if you find anything there."  Lana sniffs, and Ellie sits back, hands sliding off the table to her lap.

"You know who Baris came to the parties with, though."  Ellie tilts her head.  "You followed him."

It startles Lana, and Ellie's shot in the dark pays off.

"Did Kastrati tell you to?"  Ellie considers Lana's face.  "You've been serving him for a while now.  I imagine the bounds of propriety ceased long ago."

Lana's answering laugh is _ugly_ , rough and dry and cracked in the middle, like she's going to cry.  "They will _end_ me," she whispers, leaning forward.  "Just… do what you must."

Ellie stares at her.  Stares.  "You _love_ him," she realizes, shocked.  Lana edges back again and looks away.  "You're _protecting_ him."  She tries to keep the glee from showing.  "What- what's happened?"

Lana makes a fist with one hand.

> **piQuance** _(08:30)_ 3 universal safeword is making a fist, and releasing it, twice.
> 
> failure to comply in any situation is grounds for expulsion
> 
> with prejudice

But she doesn't release it.  Ellie waits.

Calculation crosses her gaze, the same kind of laser-focused, glacial acceptance and cunning that Ellie expects from a woman who bends at the knee for a man like Aleksander Kastrati.

"He was new too," Lana says.  "He didn't come with anyone, only an invitation."  She levels her gaze at Ellie.  "Fresh meat."

Ellie shudders.

> **piQuance** _(08:42)_ 4 personal information required for entry includes financial statements, phone number, and address.
> 
> in exchange you'll receive texts with the next meeting location and time in coordinates.
> 
> 4.1 wipe your gd history
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(08:45)_ sounds complicated.
> 
> **piQuance** _(08:45)_ Brat.

It's a distraction.

"What are you protecting Kastrati from?" Ellie is a dog at a bone, scenting blood.  Lana firms up her fist again and Ellie laxes back, licking her lower lip.  Then, she drags that same hand down her face, fingers skirtings her temples, the sharp angle of her jawline.

"The minister is the one who chooses where they go," Lana replies.  "Anything I have is of no use, only speculation."  She looks down at her lap. "I'm just the bullet."

> **piQuance** _(8:47)_ 5 what happens at miracle haus stays at miracle haus
> 
> cliche but it works

Lana makes the safe sign.  Ellie stands up.

"Very well. If you change your mind, Lana, let someone know.  They'll come get me."

Lana's lips quirk upward.  "If you weren't so obvious," her voice pitched down so the microphone cannot pick it up over the rustling of their clothes, "you'd make an interesting domme."

Ellie's cheeks go pink.  "Thank you."

Outside, Carine gives her a goggle-eyed stare for a brief moment.  "They found the rifle in her house."

There's a pause.

"Clearly planted, I assume," Ellie's voice is crisp as winter.  Dorn hums.  "What now?  We can get her for murder, but we're still down on anything connecting Ilić, or proving trafficking.  And she's not privy to it," Ellie tilts her head back to the door.

Carine sucks on her lower lip. "Just the bullet," she mutters.  "So, ordered to kill.  By Kastrati? Or Ilić?  We could go at that angle."

"You'd just create a void," and Ellie startles when Marco ghosts from nowhere, at her back. "We could get Ilić or Kastrati on contracted murder, but not on anything else.  And then what?  The other takes over, changes places, and we are back to square one."

Ellie's back shudders at how close he's speaking, over the top of her head. He's simmering with fury, all of them itching with the need to _do something_.

Ellie licks her lips once, twice.

"I think," she starts carefully, picking her words with caution and enunciating with clear, firm pronunciation, "that we're going to have to send someone inside."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I am HERE for brotp Sebastian/Ellie, oh my god.
> 
> Second, sometimes I don't even know what's happening.


	8. Chapter 8

DAY SIX

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

1.

"We found the rifle in your home," and Ellie shows her photographs.  "It has your prints on the scope and body.  Very clear prints."  Lana's face has gone a deathly shade of pale that is unnatural on anyone's face.  At Ellie's elbow, Marco is radiating calm certainty, a pitiful kindness.

"This can't…"  She swallows.  "This can't be."

When Lana looks up at Ellie, her blue eyes are soft, understanding.  "He asked you to help him, didn't he?  Told you he'd protect you?"

Lana touches the image of the rifle under her bed, the single fingerprint found on the rifle's side and the other on the scope.

"That he loved you?" Ellie whispers.

"Help us," Marco says gruffly.  "Help us, and we could help you."

Lana's eyes glitter with tears when she looks at Constante, but her lips have transformed into a razor-sharp line of fury.  Her chin comes up, the veins in her neck go stark with tension, and one hand grips the edge of the table until her knuckles start to pop out, white and angry.

"I don't know what he's doing," Lana says.  "But Ilić has his balls in a vice."  She is _vicious_ with betrayal, her whole body strung up tight with it.

"Blackmail?" Marco asks, to clarify, and Lana nods.

"I'm not privy to anything else," and Lana lets her eyes linger on Ellie's face, her round cheeks, the angelic halo of her hair.  "But I can get you inside."

 

DAY FIVE

DELFT, NETHERLANDS

2.

"It won't be necessary," Sebastian stresses.  "With the rifle, and the prints, she'll cave.  She'll tell us who ordered her, if anyone did, we arrest them, and we get the ring through them."

"That's a lot of assurances that these people will be more afraid of us than of the House," Marco says.  Sebastian throws him a glare.  "And even then - no prints on the trigger.  Any lawyer worth their salt…"

"Can she get one of those?" Arabela asks.  Marco shrugs.

It is long past sunset and the ICC team is sitting around the dining room table in Carine Strand's home, Chinese takeout boxes, chopsticks, and leftover fortune cookies strewn across it.  Ellie picks at her chow mein in disinterest.  Carine has kicked off her boots and is sitting sideways in one of her armchairs.  Luke and Arabela are taking up the couch, Sebastian is ensconced in the chair next to her with his laptop propped up in his lap, and Marco has been switching between sitting at the dining room chair and pacing the room for at least an hour.

Ellie sucks on the end of one chopstick, gazing off into the distance.

Marco coughs, and she starts, looking at him.  He's _watching_ her.

She removes the chopstick from her mouth with alacrity.

"Baris had no family, no friends outside of those at his workplace, and this _girlfriend_ is a mystery entirely."  Sebastian makes an aborted gesture at his computer, nearly dumps his tea everywhere in the process.  "He - what - went to kinky sex parties where his boss was? It's not a crime."  He glares at Arabela when she raises an eyebrow.  "I checked."

"You… checked the legalities of orgies and sadomasochism in the Balkans?" Ellie says, amusement clear.

Luke chokes when her prim, British accent gets through the word _sadomasochism_ without flinching.

"That's like thirteen different countries," she can't help but continue.

" _Look_ ," Sebastian says, aggrieved, his accent thickening from embarrassment, but Carine interrupts.

"Off topic."  She waves one chopstick in the air.  "The point is that there's no trail that we've found, digital or otherwise, to indicate that there's even a heroin ring running out of the House of Miracles.  Or one connected to the minister."

"And Janko doesn't seem to know anything of it," Luke says.  "I don't think she's lying about that."

Arabela opens a fortune cookie, the plastic crackling in the brief silence.  "And the rest of our evidence is circumstantial, at best. We could interrogate them until our faces go blue."  She cracks open the cookie, and paper crinkles.  "I think Ellie's right.  We need to be in on their playing field."

Sebastian sighs in exasperation. "This wouldn't even be on the table at all if I could just get permission to tap some phone lines!"

Ellie takes another small bite of chow mein as Sebastian starts up again about diplomatic immunity, much to Carine's annoyance.  Marco paces behind her chair and, when she goes to put the food down, he touches her wrist.

"You need to eat more."

Ellie lifts her head, stretches her neck, until she meets his eyes.  His face is uncompromising, even though his tone is gentle.  She brings the box back to her lap.

"How would we even find out where to go?" Luke asks Arabela, and the room at large, derailing Sebastian with efficiency.  "They meet all over the Balkans and we haven't found a pattern in Baris' texts."

Carine's eyes land on Ellie.  She can feel the flush beginning at her collarbones, embarrassment and shame and guilt eating her up.

"I don't think that's the part we need to worry about at the moment," Strand says tactfully before setting aside her box.  "What use would it be to send someone in undercover?  Certainly not everyone there is involved."

Luke steals half of Arabela's fortune cookie, getting a swat to the shoulder for his troubles. She doesn't open the paper at all, just dumps it into her empty container.  "You'd have to send someone in who was looking to get involved," Luke says around the cookie.

Ellie makes a face at him. Marco taps her shoulder and she shoves chow mein into her mouth without pausing.

"And sending someone in alone isn't an option. You heard what she said - fresh meat."  Sebastian makes a face of disgust and digs through the carton for a piece of chicken, radiant orange-red with General Tso's sauce.  "But we wouldn't need much.  One photo, a recording…"

"But they know us," and Luke indicates the entire room with one expansive wave of his hand.  "It won't work if _two_ detectives show up.  And do you really want to trust the wankers in another force?"

Marco says, "Well. They don't know _all_ of us."

At the other end of the room, Carine levels her eyes with Marco's face, guileless and hopeful at once, and presses her lips together in the only sign of defeat.

 

DAY SIX

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

3.

Marco inhales, exhales, and Ellie opens her lips, just a little, and keeps herself from looking nervous.  Neither of them dare look at each other. Color has risen in Lana's face, high and red in jagged cheekbones, and the tears have somehow vanished amidst her betrayal.  She's a lamb left to the slaughter, and she knows it.

Ellie can read in her face _I'll take them all down with me._

"You won't be able to get in without approval first.  Background checks, financial records, everything."  Lana scrapes a nail across the black metal table.  "And a recommendation."  She glances between the two of them.  "And if you're sending in more than one person, it'll have to be two different recommendations." 

There's a beat, and Ellie's mind starts to tumble.

She hadn't been prepared for that.  More than one?

Something must show on her face, because Lana's lips curl up at the corner.  "I can provide a reference for one person.  My credit is still good for that much, at least.  But not for long."  Ellie relaxes a little - that's fine, that's Marco covered. Lana taps that same nail, long and manicured and painted white, twice against the table.  "And you're on your own for the second."

A flash of eyelashes, and Lana smirks at Ellie.  She tries to not let it faze her, but she's sure she fails.

"There is an _Event_ soon," Lana continues, and they can both hear the capital letter sliding into place.  "A three-day weekend at the next location."  Her lips tweak. "A retreat.  Total immersion, privacy.  Guests numbering around sixty to eighty, depending on the season." Lana's eyes flicker to the false window, as if she were looking outside to the street.  "It's summer.  There are many independence holidays and festivals in the Balkans between June and September.  There will possibly be a themed ball of some kind. Fireworks."

She waves a hand around in the air, dispelling her words as soon as she says them.  The two inspectors are motionless in their seats.

"I can get you in, and I can tell you what to do to survive," her eyes are cool, clear green, and a knot of stress rises in Ellie's throat, "but ultimately, it is up to you."

When she smiles at Ellie, it's with the white fanged curve of a monster.

"You're very sweet," Lana tells Ellie, observing with regret. "They'll eat you alive in there, moja draga, if you go alone."

Ellie's heart jumps, skitters in her chest, but before she can say anything, Marco speaks.

"She won't be."

4.

Ellie frowns down at her phone while the argument rages around her head.  She is the eye of the hurricane, serene and calm except for whatever is happening between her fingers.  Across from her, Marco grinds his teeth hard enough for her to hear it over the wild fluctuations in volume between Carine and Sebastian and Dorn, all of them with varying tenuous holds on their temper.  Luke and Arabela, separately, attempt to calm them down, and trade exhausted looks with each other.

> **piQuance** _(12:34)_ we have some new openings
> 
> now is the time to tell me if you agree

"Sebastian," Ellie asks as pleasant as she can, and somehow, it's this quiet, even voice that cuts through the chatter, "do you think it's possible for us to create a cover that could withstand police-level scrutiny?"

Sebastian blinks.  Carine clicks her teeth as her mouth shuts, in shock or confusion, she's not sure.

"I… suppose.  I know how, yes."  Sebastian doesn't like where this is going.  "Why?"

"Well."  Ellie twists her lips and looks up at Marco, as if asking for help.  He sighs, probably at her.  "Eventually, we're going to come to the conclusion that someone needs to be sent in. Don't you think?"

Sebastian covers his face with his palm, and his answer is rather muffled.  "I can make something hold up."

"Good."

Ellie turns back to her phone.

> **Wings0FVictory** _(12:36)_ I agree

She considers her options in those scant seconds.

> **Wings0FVictory** _(12:36)_ I have a partner
> 
> **piQuance** _(12:36)_ find another recommender
> 
> then send me their dossier
> 
> you seem clever - I'm sure you'll figure it out.

"Arsehole," she mutters.

" _E_ _llie_ ," Carine says, agonized.  She winces guiltily and shoves the phone under the table.  To her credit, however, the conversation has stalled back into normal decibel levels.  Carine looks from her, to Dorn.

"The Court has authorized two undercover agents for up to a week, equipped with audio and visual devices," Dorn says blandly.  Carine scowls, and takes the paperwork from him.  He pats her shoulder.  "I have every confidence."  And he turns his rheumy blue eyes to Ellie, who goes a little stiff in her chair, a little more wide-eyed.

Silence reigns when he departs.

"So it can't be two of us," Luke interjects finally. "Is it going to be one of us, and someone the ICC assigns from the Hague police?"

"It's what makes sense," Arabela agrees, but she seems indecisive about it, and her intonation curves up at the end, like she's considering making it a question.  Luke gives her a strange look.  "Well.  Does anyone here have any experience with these groups?"

Marco's eyes bore into her forehead.  Ellie has remained mostly composed for the past six days, but here, now - this is when she needs it most, and this is when it abandons her.

"Er."

Sebastian glowers at nothing in particular when that single sound ekes from her vocal chords.  Everyone's heads swivel towards her.

Marco doesn't say anything, but his mouth softens and at one corner, kicks up into a shape that looks like a smile, almost.  Ellie shakes her shoulders, sits up a little straighter.  But words still escape her.

"We need someone who can get in on an administrative level, interested in the heroin."  Constante sprawls across his space, encroaching on Ellie's legs under the table.  Her heart leaps into her throat.  "Who better than a corrupt cop?"

"Well, shit, mate, out of the two of us, who's the one with undercover experience?" but Luke, for all his comments, doesn't really seem to want to get near this one.

"I'd ask you who's the one who can make it look real," and Marco smirks.  Luke… _blushes_. Arabela breaks a laugh into a cough.

"For God's sake," Carine snaps.

"I can do it," and Ellie's brain, hysterically, thinks, _I can take the ring to Mordor._   Arabela just nods, but Luke's blush has given way to total confusion.  "They don't know who I am.  Never met me."

"Neither has Sebastian," someone - Carine? - points out.  Sebastian emits a strangled noise.

"I've done the undercover field work - _no, thank you_ ," he says firmly.

"And I," Ellie licks her lower lip, "I can do it."  Pause.  "Better than anyone from… Vice or Narcotics." _Lie, lie, lie._

"Ellie," Carine sounds sad, gentle, "you haven't really been in the _field_ , let alone…"

"Then put her with someone who knows," Marco picks up when she trails off, and before Ellie can get defensive.

"Marco."  Carine cringes and, for a moment, looks longingly towards the direction Dorn disappeared to.  "All right," and she forestalls any further conversation.  "We're all in various levels of agreement that we need someone on the inside?"

Nods around the table.  Ellie thinks she's stopped breathing, and can't remember how.  She's spent the entire conversation teetering on the brink of simply blurting out something entirely inappropriate for the workplace (what would it even _sound_ like? ' _I_   _li_ _ke kink on a regular basis in the bedroom_ '?  ' _I_ _am a member of an elite BDSM club in London_ '?  ' _I_ _like getting spanked and calling people Sir and Daddy_ '?  Christ, what a disaster).

"Dorn's already told me who he'd choose," Carine admits like it costs her something.  "Marco. Ellie.  I'd like to see you in my office."

Ellie… feels a little bit _furious_ ,  that Carine had strung them along so far, made it sound like she was going to tell Ellie _no, honey, not until you can run_ ,  when all along Michel had been telling Carine it should be her.  She feels _tested_ , and she thought she'd gotten past her proficiencies already.

"Jesus Christ, little Ellie?" Luke mutters.  Ellie ignores him, planting her gaze just over Carine's left shoulder.

"Sebastian. Make them covers, make them good.  Marco's our corrupt cop.  Luke, Arabela, I need you on the ground in Belgrade.  Go question the Ambassador, but don't tip our hand.  If he's being blackmailed, I want to know what for."

"What do we say about Lana?" Arabela asks.

Carine twists her wrist to look at the face of her silver watch.  "Tell him we're holding her in relation to our inquiry, but no one's charged her yet.  It's true, in any case."

"We can only hold her for another twenty-four hours," Marco says.  "What then?"

Carine rolls her shoulders.  "We either let her go or charge her.  But by then," she fixes her eyes on him, stern and forbidding, "it won't be your problem."

5.

Marco and Ellie sit on opposite sides of Carine's office when she steps through, closes the door with a loud click, and collapses into her chair.  She sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose as though she's in the dragging first half of a Victorian romance novel.  Ellie tucks her feet under her thighs, going cross-legged, and Marco lounges, catlike, his long legs spread to either side in a wide V.

Ellie's eyes tug along the grip of his inseam to where his denims tighten at his crotch, and has a confusedly unerotic moment of wanting to tell him to stop manspreading, followed immediately by the desire to _sit there_.

"I don't know why Dorn thinks you're ready for this," Carine says, and Ellie's eyes snap away from Marco's legs to her face. "But this is a delicate enough position that if he thinks you have the experience… I'm not going to question it."  She makes a face.  "I'm treading dangerously close to a sex talk," she mutters.

"Think of it as practice for when you have kids," Marco smiles lazily, and Carine visibly considers flipping him off.  It has the desired effect, however, of winding everyone down.

"Sebastian's building you both covers, but on the outset, I imagine that you'll be in the dark about police matters, and you'll be there to try and get in on the heroin trade," she points to Ellie and Marco each in turn.  "Ellie."

She knows what's coming.

"I assume you've found a way in related to the photographs?" Carine's question is laced with steel.

"Yes. I have."  She rubs her fingers over her knees.  "We'll have to give Lana access to a computer or a phone, as well."

Carine presses her lips together and shuffles some of the papers on her desk.  She's nervous, fidgety, and Marco and Ellie both zero in on the silent false start on her lips.

"You know what this job will entail," she deems appropriate to say finally. "And that you'll be monitored the entire time, if we can swing it."

Exhibitionism to this level has never _quite_ been Ellie's kink… but then again: heroin.

"I'm trusting you both to know what you're doing with the more delicate aspects of this cover.  I expect you _both_ to spend some time together before we send you in, however long that might be, and talk about… boundaries.  Expectations."  Carine grimaces.  "I've spoken to Dorn and he suggested that you have a handler from outside the team.  It's a requirement," she bites into Marco's open mouth and unvoiced protest.  "You have an impartial handler, or you don't go at all.  I'll send Luke." 

Ellie thinks about submitting to Luke, and promptly scrubs that thought from her brain.  Sending Arabela isn't even on offer, considering she's the only one on the team in a committed relationship.

Marco, to his credit, closes his mouth and doesn't even make a sound.

"Your handler and Sebastian will be monitoring the comms.  The rest of us will take rotating shifts, and we'll handle things on the outside as well.  You'll be required to draw up a… list, I suppose.  A report.  On your safe words and safe signals.  One of those," she raises her volume to drive the point home, "had _better_ be an extraction signal."

"What kind of undercover agents would we be without one?" Marco asks.  Ellie doesn't roll her eyes, just.

"We don't have time to get you set up with therapists during the process, so you'll be working alongside your handler."  She's gone quiet with command. "You'll both be expected for _long_ debriefs.  And therapy sessions.  Get used to it."

"Why?" Ellie asks, curious.  "Is the increased perceived need because of the added non-vanilla element?"

Carine opens her mouth. 

"Even if we may do that ourselves and not require therapy for it?" Ellie presses, without thinking of consequence.

Marco doesn't make a noise.

"Non-negotiable," Carine says faintly after a beat.  "ICC orders."  Ellie bites down on an exasperated noise. "You two - look.  You two _work together_ and this is… intimate.  And you'll be faking it." 

_Will we_ , Ellie muses, and with great care, doesn't even twitch a muscle.

"We're out of options, at this point.  Do you both understand what you're getting into?"  They nod.  "I'll need you both to go speak to Lana, get her to submit her recommendation for Marco with whatever name Sebastian's given you.  Ellie, do the same with… whoever you know."  Carine drags her fingers through her hair.  "I'm trying to not think too closely about the reports you'll have to file about how we got ahold of this."

Ellie squeezes out a smile.  "It'll work out, Carine."

She snorts.  "Your optimism, as ever, Ellie, is rejuvenating," she replies with a wry smirk.  "All right.  Go get us into this party. I'm going to go get the equipment from the Court."

6.

Ellie leans over Sebastian's shoulder with her phone in one hand and her hand on his opposing shoulder for balance as she lets him drop the completed files into her phone so she can email them.  It's been fifteen hours, Ellie's eaten once and the other meal was composed mostly of caffeine, and Sebastian's not in better shape.  She's avoided Marco for two-thirds of the time with glimmering expertise.

She thinks about what's coming and it makes her breath go cold in her lungs.   _What is she doing_?  She's signed up for this, it's going to be a catastrophe, she can't believe she's been _angling_ for it.

_Everyone knows._

"Ellie!"  Her eyes go to Sebastian's face as she chokes on her own saliva.  "You're overthinking it," he says, more quietly.  "Relax.  You can back out if you need to."

Ellie gives him a rueful look and types a quick email.  "Prettier words, Sebastian."

"He won't hurt you," Sebastian says with fierce certainty.  Ellie keeps the laugh behind her tongue as he realizes what he's said, and stumbles.  "He won't - _harm_ you," more slowly.

"I know, Seb," she laughs.  She kisses his temple. "Thank you."

There's a high _ding_ from one of her apps.

> **piQuance** _(03:24)_ late night? took you long enough
> 
> cold feet?
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(03:24)_ Coordinating.
> 
> My partner should be sending you something soon as well
> 
> I do not _get_ cold feet, Q.
> 
> **piQuance** _(03:25)_ all right wonderwoman
> 
> your info doesn't have your pseud on it
> 
> 6 no real names are used at miracle haus. ever.
> 
> so shall i put you down as nike?
> 
> **Wings0FVictory** _(03:26)_ yes. Thank you, Q.
> 
> my partner is suvid
> 
> **piQuance** _(03:26)_ np
> 
> we'll be in touch

Ellie breathes out.

"It's begun already?" he asks.  Ellie shrugs, helpless.  "You're going to be fine, Ellie.  We're all here for you."

"I know."  She tucks the phone away.  "I know."

She goes back to watching Sebastian patch up the last of the holes in Marco's dossier, unmoving from the warmth of his side.

"Ellie."  When she looks, Marco is in the doorway and at least forty minutes have passed.  Sebastian cracks his neck.  "It's late."

"Astute observation with those finely-honed detective skills, Inspector," she drawls.

Marco arcs his left eyebrow, and Ellie holds her ground.  "Go to sleep, brat," and that living, wiggly feeling in her stomach goes pink, even when her face does not.  "You'll need it for the morning," more grim, less playful. 

Ellie looks away from him, back to the shadows of his new face and name on the computer monitor.  "Yes.  I suppose we both will."

Sebastian says nothing.

(Outside, by the car, on his way home, Marco can still see the imprint of chats with someone named _tanny rosenblum_ and the titillating three-line conversation of _I want you to touch yourself, but you can't come, yes Daddy thank you_ alongside instructions for delivery by someone named _piQuanc_ _e_. He presses his forehead to the cool metal of his car and tries to remember how to breathe, even when his lungs are full of Ellie's rosy cheeks and stubborn voice and the imagined shy smile that she could hide in his pillowcases).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters keep getting longer, oh my god. Be patient with me, I guess I was really serious about that slow burn tag.
> 
> Okay, but, eventually these two will finally be left alone in a room? Probably?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought me the entire way to the end  
> ugh

DAY SEVEN

1.

He's not in denial about it - a blind man could identify how beautiful Ellie is.  He's just not sure why _now,_  all of a sudden, certain parts of his anatomy are choosing to remind him, vigorously, of this fact.  And it's not like it's anything special either.  He thinks she's wearing a new blouse, as if maybe she had gone shopping this morning and that accounts for her late start today.  Maybe she's wearing different make-up.  Whatever it is, Ellie pranced in at ten past nine wearing a magenta silk blouse with long, flowy sleeves and a low Peter Pan collar that highlights the sharp angles of her collarbones and he can't stop snatching a glimpse of the shadow of a ribboned bra strap.  He wonders what color it is.  

It's completely inappropriate, especially considering they're on their way to meet their handler.

_It's not like you won't see her in her lingerie soon anyway,_  a sly voice reminds him.  He nearly bites his tongue.

When they enter the conference room, he can immediately identify the stranger as Scandinavian: cheekbones sharp enough to cut diamonds on and a long, straight nose.  When she opens her mouth, she says, "Inspectors," with a Danish accent.  Her blonde hair is left loose down her back, tucked behind her ears, and she looks… somewhat amused, perhaps.

"This is Marie Wied," Carine says.  "She's come down from Denmark to help us."

Constante narrows his eyes, and Marie looks away from him to Ellie.

"Ellie Delfont-Bogard," and the British girl holds out her hand to her.  When they shake hands, Marco's flash of recognition deepens.

"And this is Marco Constante," and when he shakes her hand, he raises his eyebrows.

"Aren't you a lawyer?"

Wied winces and retracts her hand.  "Yes," she confirms in a wary tone. "But I have some experience with handling undercover detectives.  And you'll need a lawyer to make sure that your efforts don't end up in vain."

Ellie gives her a curious look.  "You know international and Balkan law? And you don't work at the ICC?"

Wied's eyes grow tighter at the corners, the blue going bright like an ice cap, and Carine clears her throat.

"Dorn found her for us, recommended highly.  She'll be your handler."  Carine crosses her arms.  "And she speaks Serbian.  Between the three of you, that's about four of the Baltic languages covered, plus English."

Marco can see the widening of Ellie's eyes and the way her head ticks, just a little, towards him, as if she wants to ask and is restraining herself.  He smirks.

"I'll,"  Carine hovers, "leave you to it."  She disappears out the door and Ellie looks distinctly unimpressed.

"Well," Marie says pleasantly, "shall we sit down?"

BELGRADE, SERBIA

2.

The Albanian consulate has more guards in the lobby and hallways than the last time.  Arabela tries to not go for her gun too obviously, tries to not twitch, but there's men in flak jackets and semi-automatics walking in pairs down the corridor.  There's one _in the elevator._   Luke touches Arabela's elbow and ticks up an eyebrow when she looks at him.  She nods.

There's a new girl who wave them into the Ambassador's office, barely looking up from her computer monitor, talking a million words a second in Albanian on the phone glued to her ear.  When the ambassador looks up at them, Arabela has to restrain herself from recoiling in surprise.

He looks like _shit._   He's got bruising under his eyes that showing through whatever foundation is on his face, which means it's ten times as worse as it looks.  There are haggard, pronounced wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth.  His hands are shaking, except when he looks at them and controls himself.

"Inspectors," and his mouth creases into a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.  "How can I help you today?"

_That's it?_ Arabela wonders.   _Nothing about Lana?_

"Something happen?" Luke asks casually.  "You've got a lot more coppers hanging around."

"Cop- ah, yes."  He looks uncomfortable for a brief moment.  "Nothing unusual.  Security measure increase in the wake of a murder of a consulate employee."  He waves his hand at the chairs in front of him, and asks as they settle in, "Will you be releasing my assistant any time soon?"

The strange casual tone makes the hair at the back of Arabela's neck stand on end.

"Routine questioning in concerns with the inquiry," and Luke gives him a patient smile.  Lies through his teeth.  "She'll be back within twenty-four hours."

"But let's talk about you, Ambassador," Arabela's voice and face go _hard,_  like the rocks at the bottom of a cliff.  "And let's talk about your relationship with Minister Ilić."

"What about it?"  The ambassador is a politician, and a good one.  Him going on the defensive is barely noticeable in his posture, his tone, his facial expression.  He sounds intrigued, polite, and unworried.

"Would you say it's an amicable one?" Luke asks.

He makes a low humming noise.  "I'd say it is as amicable as an ambassador can get with a minister of commerce.  We are colleagues and diplomats, not friends, I wouldn't say."  His lips twitch.  "There are no friends in politics."  His words are measured, even, his accent not as striking as before.

Some kind of coined answer.

"You wouldn't say you know him more intimately than any other of the ministers, then?" Arabela asks.

Something flashes in his eyes, there and gone. "No, I wouldn't."

"That's funny," Arabela says, and Luke watches all the tendons at his neck go tense, "because we have it on good authority that the two of you spend a lot of time together."

Arabela opens up her phone and pulls up some of the photos Sebastian had found during his twenty-hour overnight surveillance check - photos of the ambassador with the minister leaving a building, taking coffee or tea together, and mixed in there, the two of them with other suited gentlemen and ladies in the garden of someone's palazzo, taken at one of the _gatherings,_  but sufficiently clean enough that it simply looks like a friendly gathering.

"Rather a lot of time spent together," Luke mutters, "for political colleagues."

Neither of them miss the way his face pales, the way his eyes dart away from the photographs like he can't bear to watch the next swipe.  Arabela tucks the phone back into her pocket.

"Would you care to revise your statement?" Arabela offers.

"We," he starts, and exhales abruptly.  "He's a hard man to get to know."  He shrugs, and gives them a flickering smile.  A shy one.

Luke tries to not choke on his tongue.

Arabela doesn't believe it for an _instant._   Can't, because that's… too much.

"Mm.  And he's not pressuring you in any way for… political reasons?" She tilts an eyebrow up.

The pause is a little too long.  "No, no.  Nothing like that."

"So if we, for instance, requisitioned your financial accounts," Arabela continues, "we won't find anything out of the ordinary?"

And then, he panics.  "Look," he says, and the fingers of his right hand clench around the edge of the desk, not quite out of sight, "he's... it's one of the ways we buy friendship.  And in politics, you need a certain kind of ally."

Arabela flicks her eyes over his face.

"Allies bought for money, Ambassador," Luke mutters.  "It sounds illegal."

" _Not_ in Serbia," he snaps back.  "And it's personal favors, and that's - that's fine.  It's not backing nor is it promises to vote on anything in Albania's favor.  It's simply an ally in times of need."  He grinned and Arabela could see between those sharp teeth, the blood of an animal gutted for life. "I think it's time for you to go now."

"It's been a pleasure speaking to you," Luke says.  "I'm sure we'll see you again," more pointedly.

Neither of them dare to breathe until they step out into the hot, Serbian sunshine.

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

3.

Marie Wied is a patient woman.  She sits across from them at the table and shuffles some papers around, clicks her pen, and doesn't even start at the sight of Ellie's bare feet coming up to the chair and going cross-legged.  Ellie, here, is always at her most comfortable.

The thought makes Marco pause.

No.  It's more like, she wants to be, and that's one of the ways she knows it.

"So, sex," Marie says finally, and Marco inhales too quickly and ends up coughing through a laugh.  Ellie smiles, and Marie smirks.  "All right, now that we've said the dreaded word, perhaps we can come up with a plan.  Inspector Delfont-Bogard, I've been informed you have some kind of inside contact."

Marco can't restrain his surprise when Ellie doesn't ask her to call her by her first name.  He… isn't expecting that, but Ellie responds promptly instead.

"Yes, I do.  Totally anonymous, of course, though I may be able to identify them if they go by some kind of pseudonym related to their online handle."

Marie squints at her.  "All right. What have you gotten from them in regards to the House of Miracles?"

Ellie lists the six rules without even looking at her phone, because they're emblazoned on the insides of her eyelids. "And a few gossipy tidbits about people I might meet, though only pseudonyms so far.  I don't know if it's anyone of interest."

Marco can see the conversation with piQuance playing out in front of his eyes, a teasing older person who calls her _brat_ and seems genuinely fond of her if reserved.  The thought makes him itch beneath his gums, like he needs to bite canine and incisor into the soft flesh of her thighs until -

"Inspector Constante?"

Marco cringes and shifts in his chair.  "Yes?" Marie's left eyebrow jerks up for a microsecond and he can't tell if it's from irritation or amusement.

"Has any of your own investigation panned out with results about the House?" as if she's asking him for the second time. Ellie still isn't looking at him.

It's curious.

"Nothing more than what Ellie has," and he doesn't even stumble over her first name, in the name of _progress._   Marie nods, taps her pen against the edge of the table.

"You'll be required to stay away from intercourse as much as possible," she begins without preamble, and Marco sees the way it makes Ellie's neck go a little stiffer, like she's trying to keep from looking away.  "It's only to be used if there's no way to not blow your cover. You'll both be given full blood work-ups and be required to use condom at all times.  Are you on birth control?"

Ellie nods once, too sharp.

"Good."  Marie sounds… relieved.  Marco tries to not think too much about that.  "I'm not interested in any specifics about limits or acts that you _are_ allowed to do, beyond the bare minimum.  I'll simply require confirmation that you've spoken about it and a report on safety signals."

Marco can only think _thank God._

"You'll have to understand, however, that you'll be monitored twenty-four seven with both audio and visuals."  Out of the corner of his eye, Marco sees Ellie's cheek flush dark pink.  (He can imagine the heat against his palm if he were to cradle her face, and he fists his hands against his thighs). Marie's face is gentle in its direction towards Ellie, more than him. "We'll be passing jewelry as marks of," and here she pauses audibly, like the suspicious and warning creak of a door, "your relationship."

The delicacy does nothing for the way the words _ownership_ and _possession_ scramble through Marco's brain.  He holds his tongue.  Ellie's blush doesn't dissipate, but neither does she move from her ramrod posture.

"Ideally, that means that you in particular will not be on camera as much."  Marie shakes her head.  "Let's talk goals."

4.

Carine is stretched out on the sofa in her office when Sebastian sticks his head in.  She doesn't even look away from where she's staring at the ceiling, just waves him in and takes the report Seeger and Wilkinson had forwarded.

"It's interesting, but inconclusive.  And we can't risk exposing Marco and Ellie," and Sebastian shrugs.  "They'll have to keep an eye out for unrequited feeling, however."

"Great, one more thing to keep track of," she grumbles, and lets the file drop to her lap.  "Sebastian, do you think this is really the right thing to do?"

He's quiet for a too long moment, and Carine finally looks at him.  When she does, he sits down and scoots the chair closer to her.  He braces his elbows on his knees and examines the exhaustion around her eyes, at the corners of her mouth, in the pallor of her face.

"I think we have ICC backing to track down the leaders and input points of a major narcotics trafficking ring, and I think they've been clever enough that we need to resort to drastic measures."  His lips thin.  "I may not agree with sending Ellie in," and here he gets awkward, "but she wants to do this.  She _believes_ in this."

Carine covers her eyes with her hands.  "With Marco, though?"

The two of them don't look at each other.  "Yes, well," and Sebastian clears his throat.  "We'll… deal with that bridge when we come to it."

"I think we've been standing on that bridge for a while."

He doesn't contradict her.

5.

"If we're passing you as a corrupt official," Ellie grinds out for the fifth time, "you'll have to do _something._   And they know you, Marco, the Minister has _met_ you.  That's why this will work, but it won't if-"

"I _know!_ " he interrupts, for the fifth time.  "But if I want access to _drugs,_  I can't-"

"Okay," Marie's calm voice slices through the conversation like a knife through butter. "I think that between myself and Sebastian we can figure out something that will get Marco in.  We just need to make sure he's interesting enough for them to want to talk to them.  I need you to not worry about that."

Ellie huffs, and Marco slumps back.  Marie waits out the tension.

"All we need, ultimately, is physical evidence that there are distributable quantities of heroin on site and proof that, minimally, Minister Ilić knows about it and has intent to distribute.  Any kind of evidence.  The operation's approval by the ICC means you have authority to execute searches and seizures of all rooms at the villa and on villa property."

"Not that we know where it is yet," Marco mutters.

Marie flutters a smile at him.  "Wherever it is.  Nothing you find will be excluded in evidence as long as it's properly documented.  That means no removing your cameras or microphones.  You'll sweep your accommodations for bugs every day you're there and make reports once a day through secured text.  Inspector Berger will take care of that."

She looks down at her checklist.  "No risk-taking if you can avoid it."  She glances between the two of them. "It's a volatile situation.  I suspect you'll have to prove your commitment to _both_ causes.  You should talk about what that's going to look like."

Ellie licks her lower lip.  It shines in the light.

"Let's review for a moment," and Ellie rubs at one eye while Marie talks, like she's sleepy.  "You'll be focusing on identifying members of the upper echelon in order to gain access faster, searching any and all relevant places for heroin or mentions of heroin, or alternate narcotics, and any evidence that connects the minister to these things.  This means you'll need to be active participants during the weekend."

"Networking," Ellie confirms.  "That's probably also something we can get advance work done on, if we think it's worth the risk."

For the first time in over an hour. Ellie looks directly at Marco's face.  His jaw tics, but he nods.

"Agreed, if you can get us the meet without arousing suspicion."

Ellie's brain lingers, suggestively, on the word _arousing_ and the way it leaves his mouth, the way his lips shape round vowels and his teeth meet for harsh fricatives. Marco tries to not show too much how quickly he remembered how _irritating_ she is, how _young._   (He tries to not think about how the most irritating part is not just her youth, but how he's going to see her _naked,_  how he's already seen some of her innermost secrets without her permission, and how much he _wants_ to even though it all makes him feel a little…

A little grimy.)

"And I think it may be best," Marie snaps her folder shut, "if the two of you make a concerted effort to spend time alone together so it looks natural."  She looks uncomfortable again, but barrels forward even as their eyes jerk away from each other, opposing magnets rejecting their presence.  "Some contacts in The Hague Vice have also found you a safe space to practice, should you need it."

Ellie's face flares up again.  Marco grunts.

"Unless you have one already."

Ellie shrugs.  Marie stand up and sets a business card on the table.  "That has my cell number and the number of my contact, should you need him.  I think we've covered the most important parts today."  She puts on her jacket and the two inspectors stand up in haste, Ellie's feet slipping over cool tile and making her flinch.  "We'll meet again tomorrow to see how you're getting along and if there are any updates."

Ellie stares down at the business card, and inputs both numbers into her phone with a kind of grim determination that doesn't waver after Marie exits.  Marco stares at the side of her face until he realizes he's _staring at her_ and rips his gaze away to look at the blank monitors instead.

"Would you."  He doesn't look at her.  "Would you like coffee?"

He closes his eyes.   _We're really doing this._

"Yes."

When he turns around, her eyes are round and brilliant blue and her cheeks are pink with shame and success in equal measure and she isn't smiling.  There's a wide space between them, a _canyon_ of secrets, and Marco _knows._   Knows he has to be the one to...

He takes the first step, and Ellie's whole body sways forward.

6.

The lady in green sips tea from a fine china cup decorated in delicate pink roses that match the shade of her polished nails.  Dorn's left hand is still tucked around his own warm teacup.

"You are certain she'll be safe?" Dorn says heavily.

When she smiles with dark red lips, it's sharkish but honest.  "I have every confidence in them, Michel.  Especially Ellie."  Her eyes flicker in amusement across the expression on his face.  "This is the closest we've come to getting someone inside.  As the Americans say, stay the course."

He grumbles into the tea. " _A_ _mericans."_   She laughs a breathy, gentle sound that ripples over the surface of her lemony Earl Grey.  "It would have been simpler if you had simply come to me."

She pats his hand.  "Stop being so stiff, Michel," she chides. "You know I couldn't, until I was sure."

A few minutes later, he grunts, "I am never going to be able to look her father in the face again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DORN WHAT
> 
> ok but guys for real next chapter  
> Marco & Ellie attempting to have a civilized coffee together and talking about kink without someone else hovering over their shoulders  
> it'll happen
> 
> Also Marie Wied is not my own creation. Bonus points to you if you can guess which show she's from.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me, here is an entire chapter of nothing but Marco and Ellie. You're welcome.

ZOETERMEER, NETHERLANDS

1.

He follows her car (a sweet little beat-up yellow Volkswagon and it makes his teeth hurt from how much it's like out of a movie, how saccharine she appears standing next to it, how out of place it is at The Hague) to a twenty-four hour cafe in Zoetermeer, twenty-five minutes away from the ICC.  Whether they were meeting there out of paranoia or comfort or some combination of the two, Marco still isn't sure, but he thinks maybe she also lives near here.

After all, no one actually _lives_ in The Hague.

When she exits the car as he parks, he notices that she's shed her jacket down to her blouse, and her hair is only half-pinned up now, a messy distracted bun clinging to the last barrettes.  She slings her purse over one shoulder and waits for him on the pavement.  He casts his eyes over the cafe as his car beeps shut.

It looks deserted.

"Are we safe here?" he asks, half in jest.  Ellie's eyebrows scrunch together and she throws him an irritated look.  "I was just," but she stalks inside and he sigh at her back.  "Joking."

It _is_ deserted, he discovers when he follows her, except for the cook behind the counter and the angry-looking woman cleaning out glasses.  Ellie has made a beeline for the booth in the back, shadowed and beneath a light bulb long-dead.  Marco heaves himself into the booth across from her and the leather squeaks loudly.

Ellie, of course, makes not a sound when she sits, as if made of feathers.

"Coffee, right?" she asks him, placid now, without a trace of irritation.  She doesn't actually wait for his answer, just raises two fingers over his shoulder in the East German way.  He thinks she's spent too much time with Sebastian, but when the server appears almost immediately after, she greets Ellie in German.

"Danke," Ellie says. "Wie geht's deinen Kindern?"

"Gut, gut, Ellie," and the anger melts into kindness and a teasing look.  "Ist das dein Einzelgänger?"

Marco watches in fascination as her cheeks, scrubbed free of make-up probably in the travel between work and the diner, glow pink, and her eyes squinch in frustration at her friend.

"Ja," she confirms, and makes a little shooing motion with her hands.  The server laughs a loud, scraping cackle and disappears.

"I didn't know you spoke German that fluently," he observes when the woman leaves.  Ellie opens up two half and half cups in quick succession and shrugs.  "How many languages _do_ you speak, Miss Schadenfreude?"

The crunch of the plastic container dominates the conversation.

She sets it aside and rips open two packets of sugar at the same time.

"It's a joke, Ellie," he murmurs, and takes a sip of the black coffee.  ( _God,_  that's disgusting. It must be a rule that diner coffee is bad everywhere.)  

"French, German, Greek," she informs him archly.  "A little Spanish and a little Gaelic, for variety," with a bit of a sneer.  He opens his mouth, but again she's too quick for him. "Look at the menu, unless you want me to order for you."

And Marco, _ever_ so slowly, raises his eyebrows.

The color on her cheeks goes volcanic red.

"All right," he says quietly. "No need to snap."  He looks down at his menu.  "Though I think you'd _like_ it when I tell you," he curls the finger of his right hand around his coffee cup like a lifeline, "to _mind your attitude_."

Ellie looks away from him to the jukebox that's playing some unfortunate 70s Nederpop.  They sit in silence until the server returns and takes their order half in German and half in heavily accented English.  He orders a burger piled high with vegetables and fries, but has no idea what Ellie orders in rapid-fire German.  Marco pours cream into his coffee and, upon tasting it, enough sugar to turn the bottom to syrup.

"You come here a lot," he observes aloud.

Ellie nibbles on her lower lip and nods, tracking her eyes back to his face, not quite meeting his gaze. Marco sips his… well, his coffee, but it barely qualifies.

"I've embarrassed you," he keeps his voice pitched low, like talking to a spooked animal, "I apologize."  She swallows.  "Do you not enjoy it?"

Ellie's fingers go tight around her mug.  "I," and she huffs in frustration, and tendrils of hair go flying up and float back down.  "I do like it."  A secret imparted, with tense shoulders and a thin, reedy voice.

"All right.  That's a start."  Marco can't help but curve his lips into a smile.  "Where's the brave girl that convinced all of us to go along with this plan?"

"Hardly," she scoffs, but it makes her straighten up, makes her eyes glow a little in the low light.  "Look," and she digs into her purse suddenly and comes up with _paperwork._

"Is that what I think it is?" he takes the proffered pages from her with a laugh.  "I haven't seen one of these in _years._ "

Ellie's lips quirk up in honest amusement.  "Yes, well," she replies wryly, "it'll be much less awkward this way, I think."  She offers him a pen.

He smirks.  "But so much less fun for me."

Ellie rolls her eyes.

2.

 _Mind your attitude._   The stern words and sharp, deep tone are still ringing in her ears, rattling around in her bones. It feels like she's used up all her reserves to maintain a cool facade at work and now, here, she's stripped down to blushing cheeks and averted eyes because _they are doing this._  It's going to happen.

 _He's going to see you naked,_  a voice whispers in her brain, and she takes a sip of coffee to hide the wince that crosses her face.  When Jana comes back with their food (Marco's burger piled high with roasted vegetables and her plate of breakfast - God, she could eat breakfast for every meal of the day and never get bored), Marco goes to hide the sheets from her, but Jana just winks at Ellie and keeps her gaze on their faces.

He eats with a pen dangling alternately from his fingers or his ear or clutched between his teeth and Ellie wants to _be_ that pen. She knows, intellectually, that she'll get her chance.

 _It's not real,_  she reminds herself. _You are two detectives with mutual interests that are faking a relationship._

As her eyes glaze over when staring at the line that cheerfully reads _bathroom use control,_ she thinks she could imagine him telling her _wait, princess_ , saying _be good for me,_ and - this is going nowhere fast.

"We're answering this for our comfort level considering the situation, I assume," he says, and Ellie's fork screeches over her plate in surprise.  "Ellie?"

"Yes, yes, of course," she hurries to say.  "Sorry, I was… thinking."  She stuffs another bite of eggs into her mouth so she doesn't speak again.

Marco pauses, and flips through the pages.  His eyebrows arc towards his hairline.  "This is… _very_ thorough."

Ellie licks her upper lip and considers drowning her hash browns in ketchup.  "Yes. It's from… some friends."  She gives him a rueful look.  "We'll probably be here a while."

"I'm sure your friend will keep us in coffee," and he looks at the mug and physically winces, perhaps a touch overdramatically.  Ellie snorts at him, but doesn't disagree.  She doesn't come here for the coffee.

Ellie skips her eyes back to the top of the list.  "What," and she stops, clears her throat.  He tips his head up and her mouth goes dry.

Tonight, here, Ellie has Marco's complete and undivided attention.

She thinks maybe she loses time to that realization.

"Ellie?"

"What are we doing about sex?"  The question startles him.  "We might not be able to avoid it."  Ellie draws on every reserve she has to say this evenly, without blushing, and it works only because she's been doing this for long enough that she can fake it.

"Answer the questions as if we had to," he decides. "But we'll only resort to it if necessary."

So when Ellie drops her pen down to _anal sex,_ she nervously writes in a 4 on a scale of 5 and moves on hurriedly.  Marco bites into his burger and Ellie pretends like she can't see his smirk around the mouthful.

"You're blushing again, Ellie," he mutters, leaning forward.

Ellie strangles a noise and darts narrowed, angry eyes at him.  "I _know_ what you're doing."

"Do you?" he says, pleased.  "How nice."  And then, more seriously again, "Do you want me to stop?"

Ellie inhales.  (Because she _doesn't._   She wants him, _viscerally,_ to tell her to eat more, to stop giving him lip, to look him in the eye.  But it isn't professional.)

"For now."

He nods. "I'm sorry, then," and goes back to his list.

3.

It takes them a solid two hours and change to finish their lists, with notes and indications and the occasional all caps scribbling NO where there should be a number. They complete it in total silence, barring the noise of eating and pen on paper. Jana seem unbothered by the quantity of coffee refills they need.  Ellie's added a list of questions to the last page where they can list hard limits, aftercare, preferences for titles or names, safewords and signals, and her own creation:

How far into the dom/sub dynamic do you think we will be required to demonstrate?  How far are you willing to go?

Ellie visibly tries to restrain herself from writing an essay, and Marco quirks his lips behind his third cup of coffee. In his slanted, sloppy scrawl, he writes:

_Judging by some of the photographs, it may not be necessary to pretend to be in a total ownership situation.  However, it's likely that the most comfortable situation may be a collared submissive at an extended play party._

He has to stop there because there's a teetering, bright moment of imagining Ellie grinning up at him and saying _but, Daddy,_ and his cock twitches against the placket of his pants.

When Ellie finally drops the pen, Marco has left only one thing blank.

"Before we get too involved, we need an operational safeword."

Ellie stares at him, and shrugs.  "Denmark.  And three snaps if someone can't talk?"

He thinks about Marie.  "Good enough."  He fills something in and he tucks the pen behind his ear.  "All right.  Give it here.  We'll switch."

Ellie takes one look at his handwriting and raises her finger for a coffee refill.

"It's not _that_ bad," he says, insulted.

"Marco.  It's that bad."

His name on her lips is a benediction and an apology at once.

4.

He can't help himself.

He seeks _ageplay_ in the first few rows and finds a 2, and her scribbled _Certain aspects separate from regression may be beneficial to the situation, such as protectiveness or covetousness, ordered habits, and permission seeking for a variety of mundane actions._   Under the Experience column, she'd written _of a sort,_  which is neither a yes nor a no.  (He double checks some related rows, and she's marked a zero for a long series of acts that would be related.  So it doesn't have anything to do with childhood, or regression. He can't tell if he's relieved or unfazed.)

He flips to the last page.  Under honorifics, she'd written,  _I will call you any honorific you prefer except Master and Majesty._  The word _Daddy_ is not even breathed anywhere.  He taps the top page.

Does he want her to call him that?

(Yes.)

Now? In this situation?  Surrounded by drug traffickers and corrupt politicians?  In a situation that's faked to the best extent possible?

He goes back to reading the first page.  She's made a _key._ For a brief moment, it makes him feel like he's fallen behind on completing academic work to standard.

Some rows had little asterisks next to them as an indication of required for their covers, and yet others had little exclamation points as an indication of hard limits, and the ones with tiny question marks were soft limits.  He wonders, stroking the question mark in the corner of the box marked _fisting (vaginal),_  if she's marked them this way because she's genuinely uncertain, or because she wants them and doesn't know if it's _too much._

(In his brain, he can see her spread-eagled on his bed with his entire hand in her cunt and emitting breathy gasps of _Daddy, please_ and he has to shift in place as his cock fills, hardens, traitorously.)

Her safeword is Rossetti. Her signal is two finger snaps.  She uses 'amber' to indicate a need to discuss something.  She's marked as a hard limit anything truly risky (except, he notes with vague interest, knives and sharp edges) and anything dealing with bodily fluids beyond the absolute necessary.  (He supposes it would be too weird if he didn't come all weekend.)

And at the last question, she's written:

_I generally dislike extended submission or servitude without some kind of distinct end point within twenty-four hours; I'm simply not built for it.  However, considering the situation, I think I should be able to at least act the part for three days.  It may be imperative to have me ask for your permission for most things and have me serve you at meals, and so forth, with the understanding that you aren't going to tell me no at least to those that may be riskier._

Marco feels an alien sensation of fondness for Ellie.

"I don't think you'll need to serve me," he considers her face, the way her face has been schooled to impassivity this entire time.  "There are enough people that the relationships must run the full spectrum."

Ellie looks up at him and curiosity shines in her eyes.  "What would you prefer?"

Honesty strikes him like lightning and he speaks before he regrets it too much.  "I would prefer you to ask for permission for most things."  He isn't conscious, really, of the way his volume and pitch drops.  "But I would also prefer that you not serve me unless I ask you to get something."

She tilts her head.

"I'd like to feed you myself, Ellie," humor in his tone now.

Her breath catches in her throat, and it's a little too loud for the small space between them.  He lowers his eyelids so she can't read the greed in his gaze.

"So, you want me to ask for permission to move?" and the question sounds so _innocent._

"Unless it's a minor change in position because you hurt, yes."  Marco… thinks his face is too warm, and he's grateful for the shadows he's in, unlike Ellie, turned towards the door and the light bulb behind him illuminating her angelic features.

"To eat?"

"No."

"To speak to others?"

"Yes."

She pauses.  "To go to the bathroom?"

Under the table, he grips his thigh until his nails dig clear and quick into pain, keeping him focused.

"Yes, Ellie."

Her eyes have gone wide and dark in her sweet, round face, but the corners of her lips are twitching, like she wants to smile.

"I think we can manage that," she decides primly, and turns back to his worksheet.

Marco rumbles a laugh and mutters, "Good girl."

5.

Ellie ducks her head as her lips spread into a grin and the telltale heat crawls up her face again.

"Sorry.  I said I wasn't going to do that."

"No!" as she jerks head up.  "It's fi- oh. _You._ "  He's smirking again, like he can tell she likes it, but he pats her hand as if he's always done so. Ellie's body jerks, up but not away, towards the warm callouses of a hand used to violence.

"I should apologize in any case," he says, "on an unrelated matter."  He sounds _serious,_ a little tense, a little sad.  "You weren't asked, by me or anyone else, about what position you felt comfortable taking or were thinking about covering."

Ellie stares at him, and chokes back a laugh.  Because yes, he has a point, but does he think they'd get anywhere with her acting as a top at this place?  With these old world traditionalists?

"It's quite all right," she assures him.  "No one asked you either."  He shrugs, but the matter is dropped in favor of another.  "Out of...out of curiosity," and God, God, she wishes she had alcohol, "were you marking things that you… that you actually enjoy or are we… are we simply marking the things that are… acceptable enough?"

Marco lifts his chin and considers the stuttered question, spoken mostly at the tabletop.

"Ellie.  I'd like to order you to do something.  Color?"  Because they _both_ know the traffic lights system, ingrained into their very nature, and it's not hard for her to decide to whisper, "Green."

"Look at me when you speak to me," he demands, firm and unyielding.

Her head comes up first, then her eyes, in two snaps of movement that look like they might hurt.

"You do not need to bother with certain high-profile behaviors, no matter how elite the people we are seeing.  I want to read your face."

Ellie's face has gone pink all over, down to her neck, disappearing under the collar of her blouse.

"Now.  I'd like to order you to do something else. Color?"  Treading carefully, asking each and every time.  He's been playing fast and loose with her before ( _you need to eat more,_   _brat,_  and _can you be patient_ come to mind with diamond-like clarity), but it's like he's reigned it in.

It makes her feel safe.  Before, it made her feel cared for, watched, but now it's warmer, all-encompassing.

"Green," she says hoarsely.

"Ask me again.   _Clearly_."

She holds his gaze and the pink in her cheeks gets steadily darker every second that ticks by in silence.  He arches one eyebrow expectantly and her mouth drops open.

"When you marked the paper," and she's pretty sure she's never gone this color before, "were you marking all or most of the things you truly enjoy or," she pauses, swallows, gathers her courage in the pit of her stomach, "were you only marking the things that were safer bets for the situation?"

Marco holds her gaze a beat longer.  "Brave girl," he says approvingly, and Ellie can't help but dip her head to her chest again, pleased and shy at once. She thinks he chuckles under the noise of the jukebox switching to a loud 50s Indorock song, and reaches across the table to hold her hand.  He doesn't let go when it surprises her again, just shifts until his grip has her four fingers curled over the side of his index finger, like he's going to kiss her knuckles.

Her heart flutters in her throat.

"I saw no reason to keep from you many of the things I genuinely enjoy," he tells her.  "We are _neither_ of us going to do anything we do not like, but neither are we going to forget what this is for."

Her mouth opens, but he holds up his other hand, palm out, and she snips her lips shut again.

"But out of the two of us, Ellie, you will be the most revealed to everyone.  We can't forget that we will have two audiences.  So if you only answered with the things that you think are strictly necessary, that you are comfortable with considering our jobs, then that is _fine._ "

She blinks at him.  Not startled, nor surprised, but maybe thoughtful.

"Is there something you wish to change?"

Ellie thinks, fleetingly, of _please, Daddy_ and _may I kiss you, Daddy_.  In front of _Sebastian_ and whatever ICC officials are going to _listen._   _Watch._

Her stomach turns.

"No," she determines.  "No, I don't need to change anything."

Marco lifts her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles, eyes sparkling when she gasps a small sound and gives him an unimpressed look immediately after.

"You're so hard to please, Ellie."

"Maybe I just have high standards," she responds snidely, and he laughs, dropping her hand to the table.

6.

June is one of the best months for weather in the Netherlands.  It is perpetually between fifteen and twenty degrees, with sunlight and blue skies in the day, and clear starry skies at night.  When they walk out of the diner together, Ellie tilts her head to catch sight of Ursa Major and Minor, and Pegasus stampeding across the sky.  She isn't chilled, doesn't need more than her blouse even though it's about to drop into the low tens.

"Text me if you have questions, Ellie," Marco says from behind her.  "We should meet before we go into the office tomorrow.  To talk about the rest.  Expectations." She nods.  "Do you think Marie is serious about her contact?"

"Practice does make perfect," she replies absently.

There's a pause, and Marcus snorts.  Ellie covers her face with one hand.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow."  Caffeine has virtually no effect on either of them unless it's in industrial quantities, and Ellie's ready to not be looking at his face anymore.  She suspects he feels the same.

"Yes.  I'll see you tomorrow."

As he turns away from her, her phone cascades a series of beeps.  Ellie swipes it open and blinks at the screen, banishing the prickling sensation of not enough sleep in the past week.

"Marco."

He stops, and when he turns around, his face has rearranged itself into the _what's happened now_ look he gets when Ellie finds something damnable at work.  She doesn't like work-Marco.

She reads off the screen of her phone in the time it takes him to cross the distance from his car to her shoulder.

"Dear Nike, you and your partner, Suvid, have been invited to a mandatory entry interview two days from now.  Please go to De Knoop on the twenty-third of this month at seven in the evening precisely.  Give your names to the desk and they will lead you to where you need to go.  Sincerely, the management."

Marco reads over her shoulder for a beat of silence, where Ellie bites down on her lower lip.

"An _entry interview?_ " his snarl makes Ellie flinch away and spin around to face him, and Ellie gesticulates in panic to nothing in particular.

"I didn't _know!_  It didn't come up!"  Her voice is too loud, too high, and Marco growls before rubbing his hand over his face in clear exhaustion.  "I swear, Marco," but he holds up his hand again. "Don't _shush_ me like that!" and his draws his face out of his hand in clear surprise, wide eyed.

"I believe you, Ellie.  It's just… an unexpected snag.  Another hoop."

Her phone vibrates in her palm.

> **piQuance** _(19:33)_ don't panic, I'm sure you'll do fine
> 
> just remember the rules and answer everything honestly
> 
> and try to not look skittish
> 
> you seem skittish to me

Ellie's body wants to _skitter_ \- away, under a rock, into her car and into the long-past sunset. At her elbow, Marco glowers at her phone with single-minded focus.

"Text Marie," he says before pulling out his own phone.

"We're not going to sleep, are we?" Ellie sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a linguistics major and I've studied some German syntax, but if you're a fluent speaker and I've made an error, please let me know!
> 
> Counting on fingers the 'East German way' is not actually just an invention from that one Tarantino movie. In East Germany, people do count starting from the thumb and it's a toss-up as to whether they'll ask for two drinks with the thumb and pointer or the pointer and middle finger. (Possibly also in West Germany, but I have no data for this.)
> 
> Marie Wied is a protagonist from the Danish show _The Eagle: A Crime Odyssey_ (Ørnen: En krimi-odyssé) from the early 2000s. It was a Nordic Noir show about, you guessed it, a cross-country police force based in Denmark and centered in Scandinavia, but also tackling other parts of Europe. (Fun show though, go watch.)
> 
> You may also note that this fic now has a chapter count of 25! It's an approximation based on the outlines I've finally broken down and done, but there will be at least 25 chapters. (Also, I just realized my word processor has been autocorrecting 'heroin' to 'heroine' this entire time? Anyway, I fixed it. How irritating.)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus Crisco. HELLO, READERS. Thank you for your uplifting commentary and perpetual patience.
> 
> First of all, I nearly forgot: TRIGGER WARNING there's some emotional and off-screen physical domestic abuse, and description of results of said abuse, in this chapter! Skip section 3 entirely if you don't want to read it. 
> 
> SO. My computer died right around the week I said I'd be uploading. I had my thesis backed up but haha silly me, I didn't have my latest chapters backed up. And yeah, you read that in the plural. (*screaming into the void* etc)
> 
> You can imagine the game I've been playing trying to remember where I led everything because I've ALSO lost my outline/notes. ASDASVHPAHD basically. Sorry for the lackluster chapter, but there's like, actual tangible case-related progress here!

DAY EIGHT

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

1.

Lana laughs in their faces.

Ellie can read the mulish expression on Marco's face; it's one she knows well, that occurs right before he sasses her in exasperation over all the her perceived flaws, so she coughs twice and redirects Lana's attention.  The woman wipes her fingers over her eyes.

"I don't know what you did, Inspectors, but you have the uncanny luck of being interesting and a _red flag_."  Lana reads the invitation again.  "I've been to a couple of these.  They're conducted usually by a high-ranking partnership."

Sometimes, it's easy to get information out of Lana, resigned to her fate. 

Sometimes, like today, it takes prodding.  And they've been awake all night, which means Marco's fuse is shorter than usual.

"Lana," he grinds out, "what should we be expecting from this partnership?"  He remains just this side of civil.

Ellie winces.

Lana hums.  "I'll bring up with you what I brought up with those prosecutors."  She links her hands together over her stomach and leans back.  "Protective custody."  Marco casts his gaze to the ceiling of the dark grey interrogation room.  "Your prosecutors have charged me with some minor gun possession while they scramble for answers.  You want to get through this," one finger comes up and taps the phone screen, "alive?"

She shifts forward again, elbows on the cool metal and eyes so wide, Ellie can see the whites around her crystalline green irises.  Sans make-up, the expression makes her look even wilder than usual.

"Protective custody or nothing, detektivić," she croons, as if talking to a child. "I'll give you a taste for free."  Closer still she leans, until Ellie can smell her breath across her face.  "They're interested in _him_ ," her head tilts aggressively towards Marco, "not you."

Marco and Ellie exchange glances. Neither of them can promise her that.

At Marco's hip, his phone beeps. Lana's lips curl up in victory even before he takes it out and the snarl looks less monstrous now without her scarlet lipstick, but instead Ellie is reminded of old scars on pale faces.  He slides the phone over to her and nudges her out of her daze.

**From: Michel Dorn**

_Offer it to her._

"You wear your heart on your face," Lana tells Ellie.  "Be careful how you look when you're among the wolves."

Marco slaps the phone down.  "You'll get your protective custody.  Tell us what we need to know about this."  He spits the word _this_ as though it's more of a demonstrative that lacks its unprofessional noun (bullshit, fuckery, shitstorm).

"So angry, inspector," and Lana ruffles the tangled mess of her hair.  Jail would not have been kind to any other woman, but Lana appears to breeze through it like a lioness.  Less sleep, certainly, older clothes, a government-appointed lawyer, but she remains unfazed, always.  "I don't know what kind of cover you've decided on, but these interviews, they were only ever chosen for new initiates that had the equal possibility of risk and value."

It makes sense, Ellie concedes.  If someone can promise only value, giving them another hoop like an interview could be detrimental.  If someone comes only with risks, and potentially unmanageable ones, they wouldn't even bother saying yes.

"What sorts of things are considered risks?" Marco asks.

Lana shrugs.  "I'm not privy.  But I'd say the fact that you're a detective on this case is a very high risk factor."  She examines Marco's face, his torso, his hands, all with a cool gaze.  "To even _think_ about giving you the opportunity means they want something that only you can provide.  Do think about that."  She spreads her fingers across the table.  "Decide if it's worth your reputation, your work.  Your moral compass," and those same, tense fingers come up and wave through the air as if a moral compass is not really of great interest to anyone.

Ellie thinks she can taste bile on the back of her tongue.

"Your greatest asset is not your ability to lie."  She points at Ellie.  "It's her."

Yeah, that's… that's definitely stomach acid.

"The way you treat her, the way she trusts you, what she knows, how she reacts.   _Paramount_.  You can be a fucking scumbag in politics, but in the House of Miracles, no one is mistreated."

"Small mercies," Ellie mutters.

2.

Ellie cracks an enormous yawn into her hands and, at her elbow, Sebastian snorts and passes her another cup of tea.  She lost track of the tea and coffee she's consumed between two and four in the morning, when her body gave out for a couple of hours on Carine's sofa.  Out of all of them, only Marie looks foxish in her presence, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in entirety, her focus on the report Ellie had typed up on last night's meeting.

At this point, the team is sitting around a table waiting for Carine and Marco to come back from Dorn's office.  Arabela is half-passed out in her desk chair with her leather jacket crumpled on the desk, the flight from Serbia an abysmal rush to make it back to The Hague.  Luke bounces a pen off the back of Sebastian's head.

 "Is that _strictly_ necessary?" the German scowls.

"If the House of Miracles is so bloody upstanding, how come Porter's walking around with a bruised eye?" Luke ignores the question now that they're all paying attention to him.

"Didn't happen at the House," Arabela mutters.  "Not necessarily tied to the case if his dominant is totally unrelated."

"With Killian as his lawyer, I find that unlikely," Ellie says, stirring another spoonful of honey into her tea.  "He's…"  She searches for the phrase, running her tongue over her front teeth.  "Killian is a king's terrier.  You don't send him to deal with peasants."

Arabela gives her an incredulous look.

Ellie reviews what she just said.

"Terrible metaphor decisions aside," Sebastian sidesteps Ellie's awkwardness, "she has a point.  Do we think Porter is involved with the minister?  With the ambassador?  We don't know anyone else involved.  We have names and faces pulled from the photographs," he waves at his computer, "but no evidence that they are directly involved in narcotics trafficking."

"Ten euros on the minister," which results in Sebastian throwing the pen back at Luke.

"A little rich for you, isn't it?" Arabela drawls.

"Oh, hey now-"

" _I_ _n any case_ ," Sebastian barrels through, "while it's a _mystery_ as to people's partners, and Lana does not seem to be forthcoming on those facts, there are issues slightly more at hand?"

"Can't imagine what you mean," Ellie mutters at her own laptop.

And then all their phones go off in unison.

**From: Carine Strand**

_Porter hospitalized._

_Up in ten._

UMKA, SERBIA

3.

Roberto lies very still on the floor of his own house.  The hardwood presses into his naked stomach, warmed by the sun, and leaves grooves in his forehead where it's shoved against the grain.  Above him, there's a tall length of shadow in a suit and the bottom of a black dress shoe pressed against his head, keeping him in place.

"It is _very_ disappointing," a cultured voice mutters, but it's so quiet here, it's almost like he's shouting, "the way that you still manage to be found."

"Please, sir," Roberto rasps, "I'm sorry."

"Oh, I'm certain you think you are," the voice agrees placidly.  "I'm going to make sure of it, however."

He whimpers.

"And Roberto?"  From above, there's the sound of a suit jacket being removed, and then cloth shifting, like sleeves being rolled up.  "When the lesson is learned, you'll find her for me to correct your mistake.  Won't you?"

"Whatever it takes," Porter promises, and braces himself.

4.

Porter isn't just hospitalized, he's _comatose_.  Unconscious, and no one knows when he's coming out it.  Carine glares at his serenely-breathing body through the window from the hall. She's not sure what she's angrier about: that they couldn't stop this before it happened or that they couldn't talk to him for days, _maybe longer_.  She'd have to install one of the team here, _waiting_ , and it couldn't be Ellie again.  Not now.

Maybe just a local officer who could call them when the doctors gave the all clear?

Arabela steps into view in the reflection and Carine's jaw stings sharp and bitter with how hard she's clenched her teeth together.  Arabela does her the courtesy of not reacting to the pained wince.

"I asked local police to keep a guard on him.  They'll let us know when he wakes up."  Arabela's no-nonsense report is _exactly_ what Carine needs to unwind the tension in her shoulders.  "They have nothing else for us.  He was left at the front doors out of a car with no plates, beaten half to hell.  The car's been found, burned out at the side of a road leading out of Umka.  No footage nearby of who might have been driving, no indication of how they got away."

Carine pinches the bridge of her nose until it goes white.

"Plates were reported stolen a few days ago and the police followed up with their usual efficiency," Arabela says, sarcasm thick. "This was planned."

Briefly, Carine spends an uncharitable moment wondering if something green had eased their way.

"I want Marco and Ellie on a plane back to the Hague _tonight_. They have no time to waste."

"You think they're covering their tracks."

Carine's lips go thin, a stark slash of grim forbearing.  "I think they're… ramping up hostilities.  And with this, we take no chances.  I want verification that Lana Janko is in protective custody.  I want Ellie put into the safehouse we're using as their address, installed as her legend, and I want no one to catch her on camera on her way out of Serbia."

Arabela just nods.

"And Arabela?"  Carine's eyes have gone into narrow slits of wrath.  "Get me into Porter's house.   _Yesterday_."

 

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS 

5.

Ellie rolls her head to the side of the seat on the jet, bracing it against the headrest to stare out the window.  Beyond, banks of clouds roll past, breaking against the white and grey wing.  Other than Marco, and the pilots, the jet is empty and silent like a gravesite, neither of them daring to broach the subject.  Sebastian had shoved two folders into their hands before they had left and told them to report to Marie when they landed, with a sort of dark, angry set to his jawline that made Ellie want to twitch her head around and check over her shoulder constantly.

Her folder lay in her lap, still unopened.  Marco had been ruffling his for the past fifteen minutes, the shivery cascade of paper rustling loud in five second intervals.  Ellie had been contemplating strategic ways to get him to _choke on it._   (In the recesses of her brain, Ellie can see Porter's whipped and beaten body, and it makes the bile rise to the back of her tongue, acidic and sharp.)

"Ellie."

Well, that had only taken him a half hour.  And there are still slightly less than two hours left on the flight.  Ellie hums and doesn't look at him.

"Stop sulking and look at your cover."  There is no threat of punishment nor dominance, just a superior wearily informing a junior agent to do their job.

Ellie inhales and does her goddamn job.

Her cover is nothing special - rich British socialite with dark desires she wants to hide from her family, with interests in music, art, dance, and languages.  Sebastian had stuck as close to reality as he could, knowing Ellie's total lack of ability to change the accent on her English and she wonders if she'll even be playing a role at all.

Marco rustles his papers again and she nearly bites clean through her lip.

It's a role.  She can't forget it.

_It isn't real._

She falls asleep against the windows while watching Marco frown over his papers.  Of the two of them, he has the harder role to convince everyone he's a dirty cop.  Marco couldn't be a dirty cop if his life depended on it.

 _Oh,_  her brain reminds her, _it does now._

The entire trip back into the Hague is done under cover of darkness and secrecy, so no one can see her coming in.  Marie is waiting for them in the conference room, the whole of the floor dark but for some lamps people had forgotten to turn off.  She's reading a book in Swedish and, as they approach, Ellie sees her check her watch twice and that is what puts them both on edge.

"Ah. You're here."  Marie set the book down and Ellie's eyes go from her face, to the desk, where two black boxes sit side by side.  "Tech came through for us fairly quickly.  These are for you to wear when you assume your covers - Sebastian's given you your legends?"

Marco eases himself into a chair, but Ellie's blood thrums a lazy slow beat so she remains standing, tries to relax against the side of the chair instead.  She thinks if she sits down she'll fall asleep instead.

"We have. No questions."

" _Actually_ ," Ellie grinds out and Marco tips his head back in exhaustion, exasperation clear in his eyes, "I've been told that I'm being sent to the safehouse tonight, as Flora?"  Flora Remington is currently on vacation in the Maldives, from what she can tell.

"We think they have you on surveillance, or might soon try to.  There can be no instance of you appearing to be connected with the police force."  Marie's smile is meant to soothe, but Ellie just wants to break something.  "You'll be given further instructions once you've rested."

There's no more arguing to be done now, and even if there were, Ellie has no energy to battle it out.

Marie slides one box towards either of them, and Marco gets to his first, opens it with restrained curiosity.

A watch, silver, large-faced, expensive.  Ellie recognizes the design as a local, deigning to decorate the wrists of politicians and celebrities alike.  She taps the top of her own box and the bloody sensation in the pit of her stomach starts up again.

She knows what's in here.

Marie glances at her.  "The watch contains a microphone, just here," she points to first dial, "and a limited-range camera, here on the other side.  It does 180 degrees, so bear that in mind when you're giving us an idea of what's going on.  There's also a removable bug on the underside, beneath the plate, so that you may plant it where it's needed.  You'll be provided with others as well, but this one is best for planting on phones or computers."

Marco unscrews the bottom plate, and examines the bug with the kind of consideration that Ellie imagines he gives everything he has to care about.  (He has only recently started looking at her with that same expression, and puts her teeth on edge to be considered another obligation, though it is a step up from _schadenfreude_.)

"Ellie," Marie says, just a tad reproving, and Ellie opens up the box.

The collar is made of the same kind of burnished silver alloy that the watch is made of.  It clicks shut at several notches (because asking to measure her neck, she admits, would have needed a more gentle touch than anyone in Tech had), has a locking mechanism in place, and the inside is lined in soft white fur.  She runs her fingers over it, marveling at the sensation of a cloud.

On the front is a little design carved into the shape of a laurel wreath with a single crystal in the center.

"The crystal conceals a camera and a microphone.  The fur conceals the latch on the inside to bypass the locking mechanism, at the right side.  Marco will carry two keys in separate locations, one on his person at all times."   Ellie marvels at how Tech has modified the collar so that the lock doesn't _look_ like it could be bypassed by someone wiggling their finger around.  "If you find anything, make sure you capture it on the camera.  The microphone is not omnidirectional - there's a second microphone and camera in the lock at the back of your neck."

Marie pauses. 

"Please make sure you test it before you go into the field so that Tech can modify it if it turns out to be uncomfortable."

"Understood," Ellie says crisply.

They don't stay much longer.  Ellie holds her precious cargo between two pale, trembling hands on the way down the elevator with Marco a grumbling shadow at her shoulder.

"Do you think you'll be able to make it look natural?" he asks before they've exited.

Ellie gapes up at him.  "I don't - I don't know."  He snorts.  Ellie recalls that her cover story includes a two-year-long relationship.

"In the morning, Ellie, nine.  We have a lot of ground to cover."

UMKA, SERBIA

6.

Porter's house is _suspiciously_ clean.  In some parts, Arabela can still smell the bleach.  Behind her, somewhere in the kitchen, she hears Luke curse, first in English, and then again in Irish.  She stares out grimly over the bedroom and suspects that they'll find _nothing._   There are some crime scene techs scouring for blood, or hair, or fingerprints, and they've found some of the latter, but cursory checks in the database only pull up the house owner 

They find sex toys in the bottom drawer of his dresser and in a black, red velvet lined box beneath his bed, the ones beneath the bed more well used than the others.  The techs test the sex toys, but they've clearly been run through the dishwasher or cleaned so thoroughly they look new.  There's no indication of someone other than Porter living in the house, or even visiting regularly and staying the night.  Arabela feels the itch under her gums of irritation, that someone's been here _first._

"I think it's a wash," Luke says from behind her.

Arabela bores a hard gaze through the box of sex toys as one of the techs lift each one out, test it, and put it into another large plastic bag. A flogger, a cane, another flogger, a blindfold, manacles, a set of heavy-duty handcuffs, a pink vibrator, a blue prostate stimulator-

"Hang on," Arabela hears herself says, before she even really knows what's caught her attention.  "Stop, wait."

The tech freezes in place.

"Let me see those again.  The cuffs."  She sticks out her hand and the cold metal freezes her palm, as she turns them over and holds one circle up to the light.

There's a stamp there of a droopy flower with wide petals, backed by a rising sun.

"That looks like a maker's mark.  What do you think?" Arabela says, her tone false in its idleness.  Over her shoulder, Luke's lips creep up into a sharp-toothed grin.

"I'd say you're right, Arabela.  Check how many more of these have this mark," he directs to the tech.  "Let's hope it throws something up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who skipped section 3, Porter was ordered by a man in a black suit to "find her" in order to "correct his mistake".


End file.
